WHEN is a consultation about a road, not just a consultation about a road? When it is the first step to concreting over the green fields to the south-west of Rugby…

By billing it as chance to have a say on the Homestead Link Road, the huge significance of Friday’s event at Dunchurch Village Hall was perhaps not obvious - but it is the Trojan horse that will change the area for ever.

The new road will run from the Dunchurch side of Cock Robin Island to Coventry Road in Dunchurch, in theory to help alleviate traffic in the village - but it offers nothing to help traffic wanting to flow to and from the Southam/M40 direction.

Other roads will be needed to open up the land but this is the starting point, paid for by Homes England with the money to be repaid to it by the developers who then build the homes they have had in mind for a while.

There is still time to see the plans and have a say - Take part in the online consultation - but there is not long left to do so. It started on Friday and only runs for a fortnight, so that’s just over a week left.

Homes England got involved to kick-start the controversial housing plans which were the major thrust of the Local Plan, submitted by Rugby Borough Council to the government in June 2017 and eventually approved after a number of modifications.

But thousands of new homes on the green fields of what has been termed South West Rugby remain the consequence of a plan that effectively merges Dunchurch, Bilton and Cawston.

Yes, the Homes England consultation shows the road has a green buffer either side, the much-heralded break Dunchurch was offered - but when houses appear on the other side of it, it will just become a road in the middle of houses rather than a road on the edge of the village.

The latest plans show other details, linking into the homes planned for behind Montague Road and also for the road that will run behind Alwyn Road - that land is Dunchurch parish but there is no suggestion at this stage that there will be any other green barrier apart from that around the Homestead Link Road.

While the fact of the road happening cannot be changed by this consultation, Friday’s meeting showed changes have been made in the detail - whereas there was previously only one junction as the new road crosses Alwyn Road, there will now be two, the new one appearing much closer to the existing homes.

There was a steady flow of people there on Friday, with people adding notes to the large-scale maps, voicing their observations on the plans and their likely impact along the full route - and discussing the details with Homes England representatives.

The prospect of the roads and the houses has been around for number of years now - this is the first of what will be many occasions for South Rugby News readers to have a say and encourage their neighbours and friends to get involved…