Flats bid a first step for life after Rugby gym club moves to new base

By Richard Howarth
Published 5th Dec 2022, 15:18 BST
Updated 5th Dec 2022, 15:18 BST
The familiar view of Rugby Gymnastics Club - for now. With the club gearing up to move to its purpose-built home in Kilsby Lane, the car park behind its current home is now being eyed up for development. Photo: Google Street View.The familiar view of Rugby Gymnastics Club - for now. With the club gearing up to move to its purpose-built home in Kilsby Lane, the car park behind its current home is now being eyed up for development. Photo: Google Street View.
The familiar view of Rugby Gymnastics Club - for now. With the club gearing up to move to its purpose-built home in Kilsby Lane, the car park behind its current home is now being eyed up for development. Photo: Google Street View.
It’s a car park familiar to generations of parents of Rugby gymnasts but developers hope it will become home to two, three-storey blocks of flats.

With Rugby Gymnastics Club having secured the new site it has wanted for years - and with it due to be moving from Lower Hillmorton Road to Kilsby Lane in the first quarter of next year – plans have gone in to the borough council to transform the car park that sits behind the current buildings.

Those well-known buildings fronting the main road will survive, with just partial demolition at the rear of one, to allow the two proposed blocks – providing 21, two-bedroom flats – together with reconfigured car parking, cycle storage and landscaping.

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Experienced gym club parents and Lower Hillmorton Road residents will be relieved that the current entry point to the site will be closed off and the development will be accessed from Caldecott Place, a currently quiet cul-de-sac that leads off Caldecott Street, one of the roads that links both Lower Hillmorton Road and Hillmorton Road.

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The view from Caldecott Place of the current gym club car park that is being lined up for possible flats, with the club on the move to Kilsby Lane. Photo: Google Street View.The view from Caldecott Place of the current gym club car park that is being lined up for possible flats, with the club on the move to Kilsby Lane. Photo: Google Street View.
The view from Caldecott Place of the current gym club car park that is being lined up for possible flats, with the club on the move to Kilsby Lane. Photo: Google Street View.

The conclusion to the design and access statement produced by consultants for the applicants Scarlett Oak Ltd says, ‘The proposed development makes efficient use of an existing parcel of previously developed land within the town centre of Rugby, where the main focus for all development should be.

‘No harm would be caused to future neighbouring occupiers in relation to light, privacy, noise/disturbance and general amenity’.

Full details of the proposals can be found on the borough council planning portal by searching for application number: R22/1057. Comments should be made by December 15.