THE CALL has gone out for ‘brownfield’ sites in Rugby which could be used for future housing, and reduce the need to build on ‘greenfield’ sites.
Rugby Borough Council has issued a second Call for Urban Sites, requesting any developers and interested parties to put forward sites in the town with potential for housing development.
The call follows a previous call for sites – held from November 2023 to February 2024 – and further work carried out by the council to identify urban sites for development before the Local Plan Preferred Options consultation held earlier this year.
A council spokesperson said: “In a changing property market, the call aims to ensure that the council has a ‘belt and braces approach’ with the most up-to-date information available to determine the capacity of the urban area to accommodate housing development, by reusing previously developed land and making better use of existing land and buildings.”
Sites submitted to Troy Planning and Design – the organisation the council has commissioned to prepare an Urban Capacity Study on its behalf – will be assessed for their potential to be redeveloped successfully within the emerging local plan period, alongside other sites that have previously been considered.
The council also hopes the company will be able to identify more developable brownfield sites which could offset the need for greenfield development.
Coun Louise Robinson, Rugby Borough Council’s spokesperson for Growth, Investment, Digital and Communications, said: “The recent emerging local plan consultation highlighted that the scale of development needed over the next 20 years will require some housing outside of the urban area.
“However, we want to limit the amount of new housing in rural or village areas as much as we can, and that’s why we’re taking this exceptional step of doing a second sweep of brownfield sites to do everything we can to identify and include potentially developable sites in Rugby town.
“This new Urban Capacity Study will give us robust and up-to-date evidence on the potential for housing on brownfield and previously used sites in the Rugby town area. Key within this is engagement with land and building owners.
“Landowners’ or agents’ circumstances may have changed since the last Call for Sites, so I would urge any landowner or agent with a potential site that could be developed for housing to submit the relevant details.”
Visit www.rugby.gov.uk/w/call-for-urban-sites to suggest a potential urban development site before the deadline of Friday July 18.
