THE rate at which houses are being built needs to be escalated due to a rising population and predicted economic boom.
That is the finding of a team of experts who said Rugby may need to built as many as 20 per cent more homes than first thought to keep pace with demand amid one of the fastest growing populations in the whole of Warwickshire.
Currently around 540 houses are scheduled to be going up every year until 2026 – 10,800 in total.
But experts said looking ahead another five years that would need to rise to between 575 and 660 a year, predicting 13,200 would need to be built by 2031.
Although they accept that would be challenging and could rise even more as large commercial developments such as the Coventry Gateway project which it has been suggested could create as many as 10,000 jobs on the Rugby border at Coventry Airport and the ongoing expansion of DIRFT progress.
Hundreds of jobs have also recently been announced at the former Peugeot plant in Ryton and at the technology park on the former Ansty airfield.
They will lead to further populations rises and economic growth, said property consultancy GL Hearn which was commissioned to look at the current housing strategies of councils in Rugby, Coventry, North Warwickshire, Stratford, Nuneaton and Bedworth, Warwick.
Based on a series of economic indicators it found all six could be falling short of demand for housing with their Core Strategies predicted to already be out of date – some of which have not even formally completed yet.
The authors of the Coventry and Warwickshire Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA) did however insist they were not setting new targets and had not taken into account land availability.
Rugby is currently working on its own new development plan in which it has acknowledged the SHMA predictions although that is still in its very early stages and not expected to be adopted until 2016.
A borough council spokesman said the council was inviting landowners to put forward sites for possible development in line with its current policy, but had not itself begun looking at specific sites despite suggestions by a Dunchurch parish councillor that villages like Dunchurch, Stretton on Dunsmore and Wolston could be swamped with new housing as a result of of the increased demand.
“The SHMA is not a policy document, but is one piece of evidence that authorities across the sub-region will need to consider,” the spokesman added.
“It is a technical evidence document detailing future housing need and does not identify any sites. The SHMA has been published on the council website and has been in the public domain for some time.”
There are currently around 43,000 households in Rugby which in 2011 reached the 100,000 population mark.
– FIVE homes are set to be built on the site of two industrial units off Hillmorton Road.
An unnamed company has bought the plot of land on Willow Lane for £450,000. It is understood to have planning permission for two four-bedroom detached houses and three three-bedroom townhouses
It is the latest of what are known as infill developments along Hillmorton Road, the most notable being the former Tebbs Nurseries, which closed earlier this year, where 14 homes are being built.
The industrial units on Willow Lane which will now be demolished to make way for five homes (s)
