A right royal uproar over Prince Charles's dream

By Fred Redwood
Posted: 2010/05/16

Prince Charles is making waves with a new building project he is fronting in Wales.

ASK PEOPLE what they know about the Prince Charles' interest in architecture and house-building and most will mention Poundbury, his model village built just outside Dorchester in West Dorset. Yet on an elevated site, just off Junction 43 of the M4 in south-west Wales, he has another project under way that is of far greater significance.

Coed Darcy is being built on the polluted site of an old BP oil refinery that measures six miles end-to-end. "This isn't just a housing development, " says Bob Croydon, the local representative for the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment, which is developing the site in partnership with the Welsh Assembly, BP and Neath and Port Talbot Council. "Coed Darcy is a £1.2billion project and it is going to be the epicentre of regeneration in this area. This is going to be a whole new town."

Coed Darcy dwarfs Poundbury both in terms of size and the challenges it sets. Whereas Poundbury will have around 2,500 houses when finished, Coed Darcy will have 4,000 homes. Poundbury is built on 168 hectares of flat green fields; Coed Darcy has a vast hilly site, covered in the detritus of BP's giant refinery, with untold pollution under the soil.

One might imagine that the Prince's efforts to revive this industrial wasteland would be welcomed.

However, perhaps typically, he has fallen foul of the architectural establishment. As you would expect, the new development is to be solidly traditional in style. "We will be using some of the characteristics of the local vernacular architecture, " explains the Prince's architect, Robert Adam. "It will, in fact, look similar to other Welsh towns, with classical shopping squares and rows of terraced housing."

The aim at Coed Darcy is to build a town that looks as if it has grown up naturally over centuries. Main streets will spin out to meet residential avenues, small terraces, intriguing lanes and blocks of mews houses.

It will also reflect the Prince's green principles, with none of the "zoning" of separate retail and industrial areas that leads to increased use of cars.
The residents of Coed Darcy will have factories, schools and shops all within walking distance.

Yet, according to his critics this is all hopelessly twee. "Prince Charles likes to make out that he is suggesting something bold and new and that's simply not the case, " says Amanda Baillieu of architects' trade journal Building Design. "It is naive to think a whole community can work within walking distance of their homes. We already have the most sustainable, vibrant places for people to live and work; they are called cities."

Baillieu reserves her harshest criticism for the Coed Darcy aesthetic: "If it's anything like Poundbury then Coed Darcy will be an artificial film set of a town; perfect if you are retired but essentially very backward-looking."

The Prince's critics cannot, however, deny the benefits Coed Darcy will bring to the community.

Twenty per cent of the homes there will be affordable, "pepper-potted" around the site. "That's the traditional way communities evolved, with the lawyer and the doctor living side by side with the butcher and the farm worker, " says Hank Dittmar of the Prince's Foundation. "It will also boost employment. Over the next 20 years the development will provide work for thousands of construction workers."

NET HRH's critics maintain that there is a big question mark hanging over the economics of the scheme. Prince Charles has ensured that the homes will be built to the Eco Homes "Excellent" standard, which means minimising the carbon footprint of each building.

Windows are to be built from locally sourced timber; new types of eco-friendly clay bricks are to be used; Welsh slate will be on the roofs.

Somebody has to pay for the high quality of the build and it looks like being homebuyers. A first phase of 196 homes is due for completion this summer with 45 going on the market at the end of the month. Prices range from £130,000 for a two-bedroomed apartment to £160,000 for a threebedroomed house. That may sound reasonable to anyone living in the south-east of England but in Wales, where the Halifax reckons the average cost of a house is £135,722, they are very high indeed.

Even though no homes have yet sold the builder, St Modwen, claims there has been "huge interest".

Prince Charles himself believes the public will be prepared to pay more for good-quality homes. Speaking last year about the high price of his ecologically sound homes at Poundbury, he said: "I'm trying to break the commercial mould, which I happen to think is unfit for purpose."

Many local people, however, look askance at Coed Darcy prices where an apartment costs roughly the price of a substantial family home in nearby Skewen. So will Coed Darcy's homes sell? "A Robert Adam scheme always puts a premium on a home and you are paying to live in this exciting, growing community, " claims Lisa Howells of Savills. "You also have brilliant access to the M4, which will make it very attractive to people living in Swansea."

The project is known to be very important to Prince Charles, who said of Coed Darcy in 2007: "The development will eventually become an example to others of how to convert redundant former industrial sites into thriving residential and business communities."

Nobody would question the Prince's good intentions but whether now is the right time to begin such an idealistic project is a different matter.

Coed Darcy properties are being sold through Savills.com (02920 368 931). For more information on the project visit princes-foundation.org