The “tragic and scandalous” dilapidation of a derelict psychiatric hospital in Wales and a mill in Derbyshire are among the concerns revealed in the latest letters between Prince Charles and government ministers to be published, along with suggestions on how ministers could best use government funds.
Two letters to housing ministers sent in 2007 and 2008 also reveal the prince’s concern and detailed knowledge of the issue of affordable rural housing, as well as his well-known dislike of modern architecture.
In the first letter, to Yvette Cooper, he tells her he “appreciates more than I can say” that his Foundation for the Built Environment was going to be able to contribute design and environmental sustainability expertise to Labour’s eco-towns project, which in the end were never built.
The prince’s strong architectural preferences are gently couched: he writes that new developments should be “in keeping with their surroundings and sympathetically designed”. He also writes that allowing 15 or more homes in a single development could “completely undermine the dynamics and character of the village”.
The 2008 letter, to Cooper’s successor as housing minister, Caroline Flint, continues the theme. The prince is delighted that Flint may be able to visit Poundbury, the new estate of traditional and neo-classical homes built on his land near Dorchester which now houses 2,500 people.
He also makes Flint an offer. “Do let me know if my charities can ever be brought in to help specifically in Doncaster” – Flint’s constituency. She does not take up the offer in her reply. She also rebuffs suggestions from the Prince of Wales on how the government might better use funding linked to rural housing and rejects his call to “reconsider” ending the funding of a related scheme.
The prince becomes particularly passionate about the loss of listed historic buildings to dereliction “at the hands of careless private owners”. He writes: “The terrible loss of value represented by decaying buildings such as Denbigh hospital in Wales and Torr Vale mill in Derbyshire, for instance, makes me weep!” He cited the restoration of Anchor mills in Paisley, now used as flats and business premises, as an example of what can be done.
Flint says she will look into how to help local authorities to use their powers to force owners to repair listed building. But Denbigh hospital remains in ruins as does Torr Vale mill.
An intriguing final paragraph in Charles’s letter to Flint says: “It would be wonderful, as we discussed, if we could establish an exchange of secondees” between the government department and the prince’s charities. It is not known if any of the prince’s staff went on to work inside government.
Previously released letters from the prince related to farming and included a full-throated backing for a cull of badgers to tackle tuberculosis in cattle. In a 17-page exchange of letters in 2005 with the then prime minister, Tony Blair, he wrote: “I do urge you to look again at introducing a proper cull of badgers where it is necessary. I, for one, cannot understand how the ‘badger lobby’ seem not to mind at all about the slaughter of thousands of expensive cattle, and yet object to a managed cull of an overpopulation of badgers – to me, this is intellectually dishonest.”
Overall, the letters show Charles communicated frequently with ministers on rural issues and often asked if policies could be changed. On these issues, he appears to have had no success, but nonetheless comes across as knowledgable and, on a few issues, prescient.
The availability of affordable housing remains as much an issue today as it was seven years ago. And on the supermarkets’ stranglehold on farmers and a looming fiasco over farm subsidy payments, the prince’s concerns have proved, with a decade’s hindsight, well-founded.
