Businesses 'lack confidence' in town revamp plans

Dozens of businesses have signed a petition declaring they have a lack of confidence in a council’s plan to revamp their town centre.

The petition says many firms in Rugby “have expressed feeling let down by the lack of strategy to recreate our town centre”.

One business owner told BBC CWR he had seen several plans for the area "and all to no avail".

The council said it was aware of the concerns raised by some businesses and had recently met them.

The council announced its regeneration strategy in 2022 and allocated £5m for town centre improvements.

Since then the council spent £158,000 of the total and hired consultants to explore options.

The petition said there have been several meetings but no “meaningful” engagement with businesses.

Simon Williams said he had seen the town centre go through some good times in the 41 years since he opened his Rugby Electrical shop.

But in recent years he said the area had gone “the wrong way” and "I’ve seen several town centre plans and all to no avail".

Louise Fordham owns Bespoke Hairdressing in Rugby and said companies “desperately need the council to see this as a serious petition of no confidence in them”.

Ms Fordham said they felt they have to do something because the situation was “beyond critical”.

“If we lose any more independent businesses we’re worried about what we’ll have left as a town centre,” Ms Fordham said.

She said the council needed to treat business owners like serious stakeholders, be clear about their objectives and be bold in going for government grants.

The council did not apply for money from the government's levelling up fund, reasoning it would not get any as the area is classed as low priority.

Ministers did give the authority £3.1m from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, which it did not need to apply for.

Derek Poole, the Conservative leader of the borough council, said the regeneration strategy "sets out a bold vision for the town centre" and was "the result of extensive public consultations".

Mr Poole said the authority had developed smaller projects for regeneration, commissioned a public realm master plan and launched an audit of vacant shops.

“The regeneration strategy places great emphasis on supporting Rugby’s businesses and we remain committed to working with businesses, residents, landowners and other key stakeholders to deliver on its vision," Mr Poole said.

The future of the town centre regeneration plans are in limbo at the moment after May’s local elections left the council in no overall control.

The Conservatives lost three seats to Labour leaving them with 17, Labour with 15 and the Liberal Democrats with 10.

Next week councillors will vote on a deal that could see Labour lead it with the support of the Lib Dems and end two decades of Conservative rule.

The leader of the Labour group Michael Moran said he was "excited by the opportunity to take forward our vision for a better, greener and fairer borough".

The Conservative group said it had sought to form a full coalition with the Lib Dems to deliver on ambitious plans to regenerate the town centre, among other things.

The group leader of Rugby Liberal Democrats, Jerry Roodhouse, said following the elections his party would work to benefit residents and "more than ever our town needs regenerating".

The row over regenerating Rugby’s town centre and levelling up funding are campaign issues ahead of the general election on 4 July.