Rugby Central: council plans to buy it, by CPO if needed

Rugby Borough Council is prepared to take Rugby Central shopping centre off its private owner by compulsory purchase if it cannot buy the site by agreement. That commitment sits at the heart of a ten-year town centre delivery plan, called Rugby Revitalised, which Cabinet approved at its meeting on Monday 3 August, the council announced the following day.

The full delivery plan, published on the council’s delivery plan page, goes much further than the press release. It divides the town centre into seven “opportunity parcels”, from the Town Hall site on Evreux Way round to the Art Gallery and Museum on Little Elborow Street, and puts a development value, a set of projects and a timescale on each one.

What the plan promises

Across the seven parcels over ten years, the plan says the opportunity adds up to a total gross development value of up to £140 million. Its own delivery targets are over 600 new homes, roughly 785 additional jobs, 40,000 sq ft of enhanced retail and leisure space, up to 20,000 sq ft of community and civic uses, 15,000 sq ft of creative and maker spaces, two new public squares at the eastern and western gateways, and an upgrade to the 450 capacity Benn Hall, with a later ambition of more than 600 seats subject to feasibility and funding. The council estimates the combined proposals would eventually put £77 million a year into the local economy, an increase of £41 million a year on today.

The four biggest parcels by estimated development value are Rugby Central and the Town Hall site at £48 million each, St Andrew’s Quarter at £21 million and a new Cultural Quarter at £16.5 million.

One thing the plan is not is a spending commitment. Most of those figures are estimates of what development on each site would be worth, not money the council has in hand, and the plan is explicit that its £27.5 million programme of public realm works is indicative and “subject to funding support”. The council’s stated approach is to seek a long-term development partner and channel outside investment into the parcels.

Rugby Central: buy it, or force the sale

The plan’s sharpest commitment concerns Rugby Central. The centre is the largest single ownership in the town centre: a 220,000 sq ft, two storey complex of 58 retail units and a 580 space multi-storey car park on 6 acres between North Street and Corporation Street, accounting for 30 per cent of the town centre’s retail floorspace. The plan describes it bluntly as having “declined in recent years, with high vacancy rates and an inadequate visitor experience”.

The council’s stated intention is to “seek direct control over the site through acquisition, subject to due diligence and negotiation with current owner”, within the next two years. If a deal cannot be reached, the plan commits the council to two escalating steps: using its new High Street Rental Auction powers to force long-term empty units back into use, and initiating “proceedings to acquire the centre via a compulsory purchase order”, with a development partner to be procured within six to nine months of acquisition.

What would replace it, over a two to seven year redevelopment in two phases:

• Phase one, North Mall: demolition, then 165 homes, 10,000 sq ft of office space and 10,000 sq ft of retail, food and drink
• Phase two, South Mall: 55 homes plus 23,850 sq ft of ground floor retail
• A new public square for the town centre, an NHS “Health on the High Street” hub, and a 5,780 sq ft centre for business training and skills

That is 220 homes in total on the site. The NHS hub is contingent on the council securing control of Rugby Central and on a full business case. A supplementary planning document for the site was adopted in March 2026, so the planning groundwork is already in place; our Rugby planning news page tracks applications as they come forward.

What is already funded and moving

Some of the plan is underway rather than aspiration. A larger Business Skills Hub, growing out of the Unity Hub for start-ups that opened in the Town Hall in March 2025, is described as “fully funded by £10 million secured through a Section 106 contribution”. A Town Centre Frontages Grant Scheme has £100,000 a year allocated from 2026/27 to 2028/29 to fund improvements to shopfronts. And the council says it has already adopted a High Street Rental Auction zone, compiled a register of vacant units and begun engaging with the owners of key assets, making Rugby one of the first councils in the country looking to use the auction powers created by the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023.

On the streets themselves, a Town Centre Traffic Regulation Order project proposes extending pedestrianisation across Sheep Street, High Street, Market Place and Chapel Street. A 2025 review of town centre parking found an ongoing minimum requirement of up to 1,278 spaces through to 2040, which will determine which council-owned car parks can be released for development.

“A major step forward”

Cllr Louise Robinson, leader of the council, called the plan “a major step forward for Rugby town centre”. “We are setting out the steps needed to turn the town centre around, bring key sites back into better use, improve public spaces and attract new investment, both in the short term and in the long-term under a new unitary authority,” she said. “This is about more than buildings. It is about creating a town centre that feels active, welcoming and full of pride.”

Deputy leader Cllr Jerry Roodhouse said the plan “looks at what can be done now, what needs more design work, and what will need longer-term investment”.

The ten-year plan will outlive the council that wrote it. Rugby Borough Council and Warwickshire County Council are both due to be replaced by a new unitary authority for north and east Warwickshire in April 2028, and the plan will transfer to the new council.

What it means for you

If you shop in town, the first visible changes are likely to be at the margins rather than the malls: pop-up uses in empty units as the rental auction powers bite, refreshed shopfronts under the grants scheme, and the seating and planting works already planned for Market Place, Old Market, High Street and Sheep Street. The big Rugby Central rebuild is a two to seven year project that has not yet started, and the centre’s fate depends first on the acquisition the council is now pursuing.

If you drive in, watch the pedestrianisation proposals for Sheep Street, High Street, Market Place and Chapel Street; a traffic regulation order means a formal consultation before any change is made, and we will cover it on our roadworks and travel page when it lands. Anyone with a stake in an affected unit, as a trader, owner or leaseholder, will find the parcel-by-parcel detail in the delivery plan itself worth reading in full, including which sites the council expects to move on first.