Breaking news: Experts think Rugby is near Peterborough as they support case for 900 more homes

Various aspects of Rugby’s Local Plan and subsequent applications relevant to it have provoked anger about accuracy – one example being the calculations of the overall total of homes it says Rugby needs, an issue still in flux because of growing certainty that the figures for Coventry’s housing requirements are wrong.

But when it comes to the individual plans for concreting over the green fields between Dunchurch, Bilton and Cawston, campaigners have been able to find them lacking and this is no exception, with the Peterborough lapse not the only issue.

Taylor Wimpey’s interest in the fields behind Alwyn Road and also the car boot field behind Montague Road are no secret – within days of the Local Plan being submitted in June 2017 it leafleted affected properties and held a meeting at the Old Laurentians clubhouse.

The impracticality of using Scots Close as the main escape route from the bulk of its development onto Alwyn Road, delayed its ambitions in favour of linking into the roads that would be built as part of the South-West Rugby masterplan.

With that process having been kick-started by the involvement of Homes England – with its plan for the Homestead Link Road skirting Dunchurch and an access point off Alwyn Road for the feeder routes to Taylor Wimpey territory - it is no surprise the developer is back.

A search of the borough council’s planning portal will find application reference number R22/1236 and everyone in the Dunchurch, Bilton and Cawston area will be interested in this early step towards the development of an application for the homes.

This isn’t it – it’s an environmental impact assessment scoping opinion application submitted in November with a response from the council on December 20, part of the normal countdown to preparing the real application.

The documents submitted though set out the areas affected. That’s all subject to change as the process moves on but it gives an idea of what could be involved – appendix A, figure 3, will be of particular interest.

The borough council’s opinion sent back to the applicants asks for further detail on a number of issues but also points out one of the tables in the key Environmental Scoping Report gets the number of homes wrong – table 6.2 on page 33 of the report offers traffic impacts based on 800 units, when the plan says elsewhere it is for 900.

The council’s letter points out one of the groups consulted – the Ramblers – indicated points where two well-used bridleways are not shown in plans.

And it’s this same report – produced by RPS group - that also includes the phrase, on page 4, that, ‘the nearest city to Rugby is Peterborough’.

They clearly mean Coventry but if a document is submitted with such obvious errors, campaigners will wonder how residents can have confidence in the more complex matters.

No doubt Taylor Wimpey will address the issues the council has flagged up but those same campaigners will no doubt be saying they… ‘must do better’.