"Why are villages being overburdened while the town is left to fall apart?" Housing protest planned at Rugby Town Hall
Outraged protesters are urging people to stand together against major housing plans in Rugby borough.
They are making their voices heard outside Rugby Town Hall tonight (Tuesday, January 27) as Rugby Borough Coucil vote on the next steps of the new Local Plan.
Linda Johnson, who lives in Brinklow, said: “Brinklow – along with several other remote villages across the borough – is being targeted for large-scale high end housing schemes that are neither affordable nor sustainable, while Rugby town centre continues to deteriorate, with empty shops, derelict buildings, and visible decline left unaddressed.
"Why are villages being overburdened while the town is left to fall apart?
“This planning strategy sacrifices children’s safety, heritage and the public purse.”Linda said Brinklow has accepted development where it is appropriate.
She said: “I’m talking about smaller schemes, sensitively designed, in keeping with the village and times where it was truly required but capable of being properly serviced. It has engaged constructively with the planning process and has even put forward alternative sites that are practical, deliverable, and far less damaging.
“Those alternatives have been ignored, conveniently. This is not a village that resists change. This is a village that has grown sensibly, sustainably, and responsibly over many years.”
Linda said the proposals could generate hundreds of school-age children.
"There is no credible, funded plan for how those children will travel safely to and from school every day, five days a week, for the lifetime of the development,” she went on.
"No clarity on buses. No funding for drivers or chaperones. No provision for SEND pupils.
"This is not a theoretical concern. Home-to-school transport already costs the public £2.3 billion a year, and councils are openly struggling to cope. Community Infrastructure Levy does not fund permanent services of this kind, and there is no transparent, secured alternative in place. The costs will not vanish. They will be passed on—to councils, to taxpayers, and to future generations.”
Campaigners say infrastructure across these villages is already stretched to breaking point.
She added: "We have combined sewers that flood. Narrow rural roads with dangerous junctions and a history of serious accidents. Gridlocked peak-time traffic. GP surgeries with no physical capacity to expand, accessed by single-width roads with no footpaths. These are fixed constraints, not issues that can be solved later.
“And yet, rather than confronting these realities, councils are changing the language.
“Land containing historic ridge and furrow – irreplaceable evidence of medieval farming – is being relabelled as “grey belt”, despite forming part of the setting of a sacred, scheduled ancient monument and sitting within conservation areas containing 26 listed buildings. This is nationally significant heritage, downgraded by definition to make development easier.
“Calling it grey belt does not change what it is. It only makes its destruction more convenient.
“The proposals would also wipe out two working farmsteads, active agricultural holdings relied upon for sheep, cattle alongside locally sold Christmas trees and turkeys, that provide vital seasonal income and keep our village self sustainable. These are not abandoned fields. They are livelihoods, quietly erased.
For some families, the loss is even deeper.
Linda said: “One local family can trace its roots in the village back over 500 years, working as wheelwrights – craftspeople whose lives were tied to this land long before modern planning policy existed. To see that heritage relabelled out of existence is not just insensitive. It is a disgrace.
"Brinklow is not an empty place. It is a living community with proven cultural and economic value. It is home to the Brinklow Scarecrow Festival, which last year alone attracted 6,000 visitors and raised £67,000 for local causes. That does not happen in places without identity, history, and community pride. “This is not what you get from a generic high value housing estate. This is what you get when people feel connected to a historic place worth protecting.
“And yet, residents now feel they are being shut out of the democratic process, without a right to voice or vote, stripped of meaningful influence while decisions that will permanently reshape their villages and lives are pushed through behind closed doors—like a “do not disturb” sign hung on the door of local government.
“This is not opposition for the sake of it. This is not NIMBYism. This is a community presenting facts—and being ignored.
“Once it’s gone, the history erased, and the obligations locked in, there is no going back.”
The protest is planned at 6pm ahead of the meeting, which starts at 7pm.