A 2019 plan, and its replacement is close.
The Local Plan adopted in June 2019 decides every application today. Its replacement has finished consultation and is heading for examination.
Read moreRIBA Chartered · Warwickshire
Architects in Rugby.
Village plots, replacement homes and brownfield in town. One council, and it is short of land.
Selected work in Rugby
Brownfield · Rugby
Newbold Road
A former gas works consented for 98 homes, then lifted to 122.
View project
Developer housing · Rugby
Inwoods Park
A care village consent, turned into 25 homes now on site.
View project
Private home · Rugby
Ashlawn Road
An ecology condition discharged twenty-three days early.
View projectPlanning in Rugby Borough · 01
Know what the council will ask for.
Rugby decides on a local plan adopted in 2019, with its replacement through consultation and heading for examination. Six things shape most schemes in the borough.
Three point four years, and falling.
The council's own March 2026 addendum cut the borough's deliverable housing land supply to 3.4 years after an appeal struck 507 homes from the trajectory.
Read moreBuilding more has not bought more room.
The borough over-delivered by 1,218 homes and scored 180 per cent on the Housing Delivery Test, and still cannot show five years of land.
Read moreThe trigger is a plot size, not a unit count.
Policy H2 bites at 0.36 hectares or at 11 net dwellings, whichever comes first. Twenty per cent on brownfield, 30 on greenfield.
Read moreThe smaller scheme pays the bigger levy.
Ten houses or fewer are charged two thirds more per square metre than eleven or more, rural runs to three times urban, and urban apartments are charged nothing.
Read moreThe baseline house is the 1948 one.
Policy H5 measures a replacement against the original dwelling, which the plan defines as the house as first built or as it stood on 1 July 1948.
Read moreRugby Borough Council policy, correct at August 2026. The new local plan is heading for examination and the housing land position moved twice in eleven weeks, so we re-check them at the point of application.
The proof
Consent around a listed house.
Caldecott Square, Rugby
Three plots in the Rugby town centre conservation area, beside a Grade II listed church. The 18th century listed college house kept at the centre, and 73 extra care homes consented around it in June 2016 for Audley Holdings and Oak Retirement.
See the work
Every application we make is a matter of public record on a council planning register. Ours reach more than 100 planning authorities across the UK, and Rugby Borough has been receiving applications in our name since 2006. The practice has been working since 1970.
Who we work with · 02
Start from what you are building.
Developers, homeowners and commercial clients all need the same first answer: what will this site take? The route to it changes with the project.
For developers
Village edges, former pub sites and town centre brownfield, from residential architects who design schemes that are viable and buildable, with the planning case built in from the first sketch.
Residential developmentFor homeowners
Extensions, remodels and replacement houses, including the 1948 baseline that decides how big a new country house is allowed to be, designed around how you live.
Private homesCommercial and mixed-use
Shops, offices, care schemes and change of use, from commercial architects who argue the case with the evidence Rugby Borough expects to see.
Commercial workWhy Rickett · 03
Start a conversation Why clients come back.
Work with a team that has already built here.
Twenty-five homes on site at Inwoods Park. A former gas works consented for 122 apartments at Newbold Road. Yours would not be our first Rugby brownfield, or our first protected species.
Get to a decision sooner.
Straight to a complete, valid submission. The delays that cost a programme are the avoidable ones, not the statutory clock.
A lead architect, start to finish.
A lead architect is involved from the first conversation to the last drawing. The team that starts your scheme stays with it, so nothing is passed down a chain.
Know the site before you commit to it.
Appraised properly, in the open, by someone who knows what a council needs to see and when the right answer is to push back.
Green Belt Conservation areaReplace a house without losing its size.
Most of the borough outside the town is village and open countryside, so the size of the house you are replacing, measured as it stood in 1948, sets the envelope long before elevations do. A redundant air ambulance base at Princethorpe became a family home on exactly that ground.
original footprint not materially larger same siting Green BeltSpend once the risk is down, not before.
Costs staged behind certainty. Every commitment sits behind the decision that justifies it, so nothing is spent on a scheme that has not earned it.
appraisal consent your spendLet someone else hold the list.
From first appraisal to final discharge, every survey, report and condition is tracked for you. You are not the one chasing an ecologist in week nine.
Ecology surveyReport inCondition 7tracked to dischargeWorking on a site in Rugby?
Tell us about it and a Senior Architect will give you an initial appraisal and guide you as to what to do next.
Start a conversationCommon questions · 04
Questions about building in Rugby.
Do you work on projects in Rugby?
Yes. Newbold Road in the town centre, Inwoods Park on Ashlawn Road, former pub sites at Ryton-on-Dunsmore, a replacement house at Birdingbury and a new home at Princethorpe are all places the practice has worked. Applications in our name have been going to Rugby Borough Council since 2006, and they sit on the registers of more than 100 planning authorities across the UK.
Does Rugby Borough Council have a five year housing land supply?
No. The council's addendum of 27 March 2026 puts the borough at 3.4 years of deliverable supply at 1 April 2025, down from the 4.16 years its own position statement had reported, after an appeal decision removed 507 dwellings from the trajectory. That engages the national presumption in favour of sustainable development, which tilts the balance towards well-made housing proposals in suitable locations. It is a tilt, not a waiver: heritage, highway safety and Green Belt still decide applications here.
Rugby keeps building homes. Why is it still short of land?
Because past success is discounted. The borough delivered 9,639 homes between 2011 and 2025 against a requirement of 8,421, an over-delivery of 1,218, and scored 180 per cent on the Housing Delivery Test. But the Local Plan was adopted on 4 June 2019, so it is now more than five years old, and national policy then measures supply against local housing need rather than the plan requirement. The over-delivery is set aside and the clock restarts at 636 homes a year.
How much affordable housing does a scheme in Rugby have to provide?
Twenty per cent on previously developed land and 30 per cent on greenfield, and the trigger has two limbs. Policy H2 applies to sites of at least 0.36 hectares in size or capable of accommodating 11 net dwellings or more. The area limb is the one that catches people, because it is not a unit count: eight houses at a generous density can cross 0.36 hectares and carry the full 30 per cent while eleven tight ones on a smaller plot would not.
What does the Community Infrastructure Levy cost in Rugby?
Less on a bigger scheme, which is the opposite of what most people expect. On the 2026 indexed rates, houses in the Rugby urban area are charged at 62.99 pounds per square metre for 11 units or more and 104.99 pounds for ten or fewer. Rural rates run from 167.98 to 209.97 pounds, so a small rural scheme pays more than three times an urban one. Apartments in the urban area are charged nothing at any scale. The rate is fixed by the year permission is granted.
Can I replace a house in the countryside or Green Belt near Rugby?
Often, and the size test is stricter than it first reads. Policy H5 permits a replacement dwelling provided it is not materially larger than the original dwelling, is no more intrusive in the landscape, sits in substantially the same place, and the house being demolished is not of historic merit. The word original is doing the work: the plan defines it as the house as first built, or as it stood on 1 July 1948. Extensions added since do not count towards the baseline.
My building is in a Rugby conservation area. What changes?
The evidence you have to bring. The borough has 19 conservation areas alongside 6 Grade I, 30 Grade II star and 460 Grade II listed buildings, 26 scheduled monuments and, at the last count published in the plan, 10 assets on the Heritage at Risk Register. Inside a conservation area the question stops being whether a design is good and becomes whether it preserves or enhances what is already there, which is an argument made with appraisals, drawings and precedent rather than assertion.
