Rugby Town Centre – action must be taken says Sandison

At Rugby Council's cabinet meeting yesterday Cllr Neil Sandison (Lib Dem, Eastlands) was the only councillor to challenge Rugby Borough Council's performance last year (see http://rugby.lib.dm/a5ZlV ).

The sad decline of our town centre has long been of concern to Rugby's Liberal Democrats ( see http://rugby.lib.dm/a9R3V )

The performance data on the number of visitors to Rugby Borough Council showed a further 12% drop in footfall this Winter (Jan to Mar).

Councillors were informed that they could no longer monitor the level of sales in the town centre as Rugby First were no longer going to collect this information.

How would the Council now be able to tell if its £1 million investment in the Rugby World Cup (see http://rugby.lib.dm/a6RH1 ) would pay any dividends asked Cllr Sandison.

In view of the large number of vacant shops would the Council consider taking items from its museum collections and displaying them in the empty shop's windows he asked.

"Would the Council consider promoting pop up shops?" he challenged.

Tory cabinet member Cllr Heather Timms (Revel & Binley Woods) took a leaf out of her leader's book, http://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2011/apr/27/david-cameron-calm-down-dear , and told Neil not to worry as the shop vacancy level in Rugby was below that of other comparable towns.