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. 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. It is hoped that the company will be able to identify more developable brownfield sites whose development will offset the need for greenfield development.
Anyone interested in suggesting a potential urban development site is asked to complete a form available on the council’s website. They are asked to provide information on the site location, size, current use, and ownership along with details about site access, deliverability and constraints to development.
Cllr Louise Robinson, Rugby Borough Council portfolio holder for Growth, Investment, Digital and Communications, said: “The recent emerging local plan consultation highlighted that the scale of development needed over the next twenty 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.
“Landowner’s or agent’s 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.”
For more information on the Urban Capacity Study and Call for Urban Sites see https://www.rugby.gov.uk/w/call-for-urban-sites.
The Call for Urban Sites closes on Friday 18 July 2025.