More development in Rugby

Last year I spent a couple of days at the design inquiry for the mast site which is at the eastern side of Rugby’s urban area. On Friday I attended an exhibition of proposals for development of what is known as the “Gateway” site which is to the west of the Leicester road and up to the M6 Motorway. This is a large site where the proposals are for 1300 houses and 36 hectares of employment land with an anticipated 2400 jobs. In many ways this is a more obvious site for development than the mast site but many of the concerns are the same. It will be important that infrastructure is in place before much of the development takes place and there is anxiety about the capacity of the Leicester road which although a dual carriageway will take all of the traffic from the Western Relief Rd when it opens later this year. It will be important that new residents are able to easily access the town centre in order to keep their spend here in Rugby and there is already a great deal of pressure on the Avon Mill roundabout. In addition links to the existing community of Coton Park on the other side of the Leicester road will need to be considered closely. All in all done well this can be a benefit to Rugby, but there is much detail still to be looked at. You can see a short film of my remarks about these development proposals here.