Rugby council plans to ask operators from about 19 October whether speedway and stock cars could return to Brandon Stadium. Replies due 30 November.
Rugby Borough Council is preparing to ask the market a direct question: is there anyone who could restore Brandon Stadium and run it for speedway and stock car racing again?
Cabinet was asked on Tuesday evening to approve a “soft market testing” pack for the stadium, which has not hosted racing since 2016. If approved, the documents go out on the council’s procurement portal in the week starting 19 October. Responses would be due around 30 November, and the findings would come back to Cabinet in February or March 2027.
That is the furthest the council has gone in nearly four years of trying. It is also hedged at every turn. The site belongs to a private company, Brandon Estates Limited, and the council does not own it or control access to it.
What the council is asking
The Cabinet report for 6 October (agenda item 9) says the exercise will try to find out:
- whether there is “genuine and credible” market interest
- whether restoring and running the stadium looks commercially viable
- what funding, legal and operating structures respondents think are realistic
- how much council involvement, if any, they would need
- what capital works, surveys and consents would have to be tested
- what legal, procurement, subsidy or compulsory purchase issues would follow
The brief going to operators describes the aim as “the potential restoration, operation and long-term management of Brandon Stadium for speedway, stock car racing and associated community uses”.
What it does not do
The report is unusually blunt about the limits. The exercise is not a tender, does not pick an operator and does not commit any money. It is not a decision to buy the site or to use compulsory purchase powers.
The council’s own risk table lists “public expectation” as a risk. It warns that issuing the documents “could be seen as a commitment that the stadium will reopen or that the Council will pursue CPO”. It also lists the chance that the landowner objects “to the Council testing the market in relation to land it does not own”.
No extra budget is being sought. The cost is officer time, met from existing budgets.
How it got here
The 29 June 2026 Cabinet report (agenda item 18) sets out the history.
The stadium opened in 1928 and was first used for speedway. The Coventry Bees raced there from 1948 until it closed in 2016. BriSCA Formula 1 stock cars arrived in 1958, and Brandon hosted the BriSCA F1 World Championship for the first time in 1960. Since closure, the report says, the site “has fallen into disrepair and has been subject to vandalism and fires”.
The owner applied in January 2018 to demolish the stadium and build housing (R18/0186). The council refused it on 16 November 2022. On 19 January 2024 a planning inspector dismissed the appeal, concluding the stadium was “not surplus to requirements”.
Full Council passed a motion on 14 December 2022 asking officers to explore ways to bring the stadium back into use. The council’s submitted Local Plan now carries Policy W1(b), which supports restoring the stadium for speedway, stock cars and other motor sport. That policy is still under examination and is not yet adopted.
In June, Cabinet agreed a “limited and controlled preparatory phase”. The minutes record that part of the debate was held in private, on exempt legal and commercial advice. Tuesday’s report is the second gateway that decision required.
The owner’s position
The June report records a reply from a representative of Brandon Estates Limited dated 12 March 2026. It said the campaigners’ consortium had supplied no evidence of funding, business plan viability, governance or a delivery programme. It also said the site was not being marketed for sale. The landowner said it was progressing its own planning proposal, which it described as accommodating speedway alongside housing.
A planning application for the site, R26/0559, is with the council’s planners. The Cabinet report mentions it “for factual context only” and stresses that the market test takes no view on it. Council officers working on the stadium project are kept behind an “information barrier” from the planners who will decide that application.
Legal advice the council took in June 2024 found there “appear to be suitable statutory powers available to support compulsory acquisition”. The same advice said any case would depend on more work on planning, funding and delivery, and on trying first to buy the site by agreement.
What it means for you
- If you want racing back: this is the first time the council has asked operators, in public, whether they can make it work. The answers decide whether anything further happens.
- If you live near the stadium: nothing physical changes. The exercise authorises no works, no site access and no change of use.
- If you want to comment on R26/0559: do so through the planning application, not this exercise. The council’s planning register is on Agile Applications.
- What to watch: the decision notice for Tuesday’s meeting, normally published within three working days, and the portal documents from 19 October.
The council had not published the outcome of Tuesday’s vote when this story was written. We will update it when it does. Cllr Sam Edwards, the portfolio holder, said in July that the council was “not making a final decision on acquisition, compulsory purchase or future operation of the site”.
For more on planning in the borough, see our Rugby planning news page.
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