Community comes together to make most of Rugeley Power Station plans

A new campaign group, Power for All, has been launched by members of the community looking to preserve and develop the area for the benefit of both residents and tourists.

It comes after community meetings were held to showcase the masterplan by owner ENGIE to place 2,300 homes on the site, as well as 1.2 hectares of mixed-use buildings, five hectares of employment land, a primary school, open space and key infrastructure.

A meeting has since been held by Power for All, which brought together dozens of residents and businesses to share ideas for the future as well as concerns.

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Laura Dunning, member of the group, said: "The group was formed earlier this year in order to try and improve the area.

"We're doing it off the back of the power station site's development, that was the catalyst.

"The meeting was held at Rugeley Community Centre, businesses, groups and residents were invited so they could hear what we are about.

"We want the community to have a voice, we've already distributed a number of questionnaires but we wanted to start interacting with businesses and organisations.

"There were lots of thoughts and ideas and a lot of positivity and we were also talking about things we would like to see improve.

"Concerns came up about only having one high school in Rugeley and transport links in and out of the town.

"As a group we're not against what the developers are doing at Rugeley Power Station, we're just about improving things moving forward, we want to keep very positive."

School places

The news comes after councillors have raised concerns about a lack of secondary school places when discussing the power station.

Lichfield District Council’s planning committee members were given an opportunity to raise issues the would like to be considered at the decision making stage.

Councillor Jamie Checkland had noted the plans for a primary school but called for sufficient secondary school places to be included.

Plans were announced for a mixed-use development at the end of last year - transforming the site into an entirely new sustainable and smart community.

Rugeley A power station opened in 1961 while Rugeley B power station, which provided enough electricity to power around half a million homes, followed nine years later.

There were plans to convert the power station to run on biomass fuel in 2012 but they were never carried out.

The station eventually closed in June 2016 when 120 jobs were lost.

The first stages of the demolition of the former power station have taken place, while the other main structures, including boiler house, chimney and cooling towers are scheduled for controlled collapse through the remainder of 2019 and 2020 and the complete demolition of the site is expected in 2021.

To follow the group, search for Power for All on Twitter or Facebook.