Rugby Borough Council (RBC) has voted to spend £291,000 of public money from its Town Centre Strategy Reserve on cosmetic works to St Andrew’s Church — including stonework repairs, stained-glass polishing, and new lighting.

The Town Centre Strategy Reserve is a discretionary public fund intended to improve Rugby’s town centre for everyone — accessibility upgrades, public seating, safer street lighting, and community infrastructure.

By diverting this money into decorative works on a single religious building owned by the Church of England — one of the richest landowners in the country — the Council has effectively treated a church façade as a public amenity.

It is not.

Once this £291,000 is spent, it cannot be used for any other town-centre improvement or community benefit.

To make matters worse, the decision was marked “not subject to call-in,” meaning councillors cannot challenge or appeal it internally. It is locked in — insulated from democratic scrutiny.

The building is already fully functional. The proposed works will not improve access, expand use, or deliver any measurable community benefit.

💔 Meanwhile, Rugby faces crisis on every front

• 7,089 emergency food parcels were distributed by Rugby Foodbank between April 2023 and March 2024 — 36% went to children.
• That’s a 34% increase in one year, with over 2,800 parcels going to children.
• 31% of children nationally now live in poverty.
• Adult social care is collapsing under strain.
• Homelessness continues to rise across the borough.

These are not statistics; they are the daily realities of our neighbours.
And yet, while families choose between heating and eating, Rugby Borough Council has chosen to spend nearly £300,000 making a wealthy church’s windows shine brighter.

⚠️ Transparency and integrity failures

This decision was made amid serious concerns about conflicts of interest and a lack of transparency:

• The meeting was advertised as livestreamed, but no stream ever took place. Residents were denied the openness they were promised.
• All 42 councillors and Council Leader Dan Green were contacted before the vote — none responded.
• Revd Canon Edmund Newey, Rector of St Andrew’s, is also a Director of Rugby First, the town’s Business Improvement District, heavily funded by the Council.
• Labour Cllr and former Mayor Maggie O’Rourke is a trustee of Friends of St Andrew’s, the charity supporting the church.
• Conservative Cllr and former Mayor Simon Ward is also a trustee of the same charity.
• Conservative Cllr and former Mayor Tony Gillias is a former director of Gillias Electrical Services, a company that has previously carried out electrical work at St Andrew’s — and which may again be sub-contracted through Robert Davies Architects Ltd, the firm overseeing the current project (Planning Ref: R25/0757).
  The company’s current director is Christopher Gillias — Cllr Tony Gillias’s brother.

These overlapping relationships form an alarming web of conflicts of interest.

Three councillors with direct ties to the church or its contractors participated in a decision to fund it with public money.

This is not democracy; it is self-serving governance.

🧾 What this means for Rugby

This is not regeneration. It is a moral failure — public money redirected to benefit a powerful institution while vulnerable residents are left behind.

Hungry children cannot eat stained glass.
Vulnerable adults cannot be housed under new lighting.

Rugby is a proud, multicultural, multi-faith town. Its council’s spending should reflect that — funding projects that deliver real, measurable benefit to the public, not prestige projects that flatter councillors and clergy.

✍️ By signing this petition, you call on Rugby Borough Council to:

1. Reverse the £291,000 allocation for St Andrew’s Church.
2. Reaffirm full transparency in decision-making, including livestreaming meetings as promised.
3. Investigate and address conflicts of interest, ensuring councillors with personal or familial ties to beneficiaries are excluded from future votes or influence.
4. Prioritise essential services — housing, food security, and social care — over cosmetic projects.

📢 Rugby deserves better.
Public money must serve the public.

Please sign and share this petition — and remind our elected councillors who they were chosen to serve.

✊ Serve the people, not the stonework.

Thank you,
Jude Dowling