Special report:
A closer look at the BT masts site development plan

IT HAS been mooted as the ideal location for a wind farm. It was even once suggested it could have been the site of Queen Boudicca’s last battle between her Iceni tribe and the invading Romans.

Discussion about the redevelopment of the former BT masts site can be traced back almost 25 years.

Since then much has been said about the 1,168 acre-site (473 hectares) between Clifton on Dunsmore and Hillmorton, but until 2008 few details have been made available about exactly what would become of the huge swathes of open land which was once home to the landmark masts and from where the atomic clock, pips and speaking clock were sent from.

The finer details have now drawn up and a planning application is set to go before borough councillors early next year, but what will we see once the builders have finished in around 20 years time?

Here we take a close look through the 150-page document which sets out the proposals right down to the height of the buildings and the location of the play areas.

The masts site is no ordinary housing development because it will change the shape of Rugby.

It effectively creates an entire new town on the outskirts of the borough’s boundary with Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, and is described by the those behind the plans - the Rugby Radio Station Partnership (RRSP) - as one of the UK’s most significant developments of the next two decades.

Six thousand homes

The RRSP, landowners BT and Aviva Investments, is creating a whole new community with 6,200 homes pushing the borough’s population up by 15,550 - a 15 per cent increase on the current figure of around 100,000 - and all in the relative blink of an eye.

Most will be family homes with just 15 per cent due to be flats or apartments and the design team has focused the family homes in areas where there will be a lower density of building with more gardens and outdoor areas.

So comprehensive is this document, it even sets out an average building density per hectare (dph) of 39 - in line with recommendations of the Council for the Protection of Rural England. They will however range from 25dph right up to 65 district and local centres. It also details building heights of between nine and 15 metres.

There will be three primary schools, one of which is set to occupy the same site as the one secondary school in the main district centre based in the area around the historic C Station which is due to be retained as a focal point.

A supermarket around the size of a large football pitch is in the plans for the district centre which will be in the north east corner of the site along with smaller retail units.

Within each of the other three local centres - one in the north west corner of the site, one at the southern end close the West Coast Mainline and another in the southern eastern end - will be shops and what are at the moment only described as community facilities with two also being home to the other primary schools.

Shopping

The shops planned for the site will, according to the design document, ‘complement rather than compete’ with the existing town centre, adding it will ‘direct people first and foremost to Rugby town for higher-order leisure and cultural activities’.

Although it is envisaged there will a commercial focus in the local centre at the southern tip of the site, there will also be a range of business premises such as office and studio spaces as well as workshops and small manufacturing units throughout the development which is due to provide around as many as 2,500 jobs.

The document makes a clear statement of the intended potential green credentials with a focus promised on buildings with minimal energy consumption by maximising the use of solar power, rainwater harvesting, the generation of renewable energy and use of ecologically-sensitive materials.

But this site is not just about building.

As well as the C Station being retained, so will the anchor foundations for the 12 original 820ft masts while there is a commitment to protect the extensive areas of ridge and furrow while the Oxford Canal and Hillmorton Locks will become the focus of a drive to establish what the designers call a ‘green infrastructure linking the site to Rugby’.

Open space

Large swathes of land will remain as open space - 135 hectares to be exact; a majority of which encompass the three quarters of the site from the eastern point stretching anti-clockwise round the southern tip and the site’s boundary with the West Coast Mainline.

A further 24 hectares will be classified as formal open space with the 13 play areas spread around the residential areas. Sports pitches will be at the four schools.

There is an intention to retain as much of the existing landscape including the most important hedgerows in what is known as the Dunsmore Plateau Fringe to the north west and the Fledon Ironstone Fringe to the south west.

The plan sets out an ambitious desire to encourage people to walk or cycle rather than get in the car when travelling within the site. Streets have been designed to favour walking and cycling with wider pavements and more modest road widths, many of which will be limited to 20mph. Buffers zones will sit between the town. Every single home will have bike storage areas.

It makes reference to the promise of high quality pedestrian and cycle links throughout the site, as well as to and from it, with bus services to DIRFT, Rugby town centre and the railway station.

In fact, the site is boldly described in the document as having the potential to ‘be a catalyst for bringing forward more sustainable travel patterns in Rugby’ and is working towards a target of 25 per of all journeys from the site being by public transport by 2026.

Amphibian crossings will be created at intersections of streets and the many wildlife corridors running throughout the site, and an ecological park to encourage barn owls, bats, otters, water voles and birds is proposed south of the canal between the railway line.

Significant new woodland planted is also earmarked along the new link road from the north-western end to Clifton Road while natural open space with wetlands and wildlife areas will be centred around the land to the west of the A5 as a result of its classification by the Environment Agency as a high flood risk area.

There is a confident claim of all 6,500 homes being no more than 300 metres away from at least two hectares of green spaces from their homes. The streets will be adorned by public art with historical references.

Cemeteries, church yards and allotments are in the plans while a 50-year-old orchard in the southern east corner is been earmarked as a distinctive feature that will become part of the green space even though it is described as neglected while its potential to continue to produce fruit is considered limited.

There will be four ways in; two from the A5, one at Hillmorton Locks and another via Moors Lane.

A train station was in the original 2003 consultation document Rugby Radio Station - a broadband community is not in these plans, but crucially they state the proposals ‘do not preclude delivery of a new station should it be required in the future’.

All proposals are vague and will no doubt come down the desire of the companies that will actually build the homes and commercial premises.

They say the devil is in the detail and there is a lot of detail in the planning documents submitted to the borough council two weeks ago.

What there is no doubt about is this development is finally about to happen and when you take into account talks have spanned three decades, it will start relatively soon.

The entire site is expected to come to fruition over a period of 20 years with 2016 currently expected to be the start date because even if these plans are approved, they only set out the principle for the development.

RRSS said it expects to sell of the land is stages to four or five builders, meaning what we see at the moment is not necessarily exactly what we will get.

Each will then have to submit formal applications with the Rugby side of the land likely to be the first to see construction.

To read all the documents relating to the planning application log onto www.rugby.gov.uk.

- The captions that appeared on these pictures in the newspaper version of this article were incorrect.

One of the final four masts after they had been pulled down in 2007. Picture by Jon Mullis.

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