Fed up with the work of contemporary architects in the 1980s, the Prince of Wales put his back garden where his mouth was. But is Poundbury any good?

British Airways Highlife, July 2001

The people of Poundbury are happy souls but occasionally they have complaints. Someone has parked a commercial vehicle in the streets, which is not permitted, so there’ll probably be a minute about that at the Residents’ Association meeting. Someone else had an idea about repainting the colour of their front door but then a neighbour mentioned a clause in the housing contract and the door stayed brown.
And someone called Sue McCarthy-Moore is still talking about the gravel. ‘I have two teenage daughters who are always treading it into the house,’ she complains. The gravel is the colour of camels, a cheaper alternative to cobbles and more attractive than tarmac. It is almost everywhere in Poundbury and has the attraction of making everyone audible as they walk around, which means no burglars creeping around unannounced after dark. The residents are very proud that there is no crime in their neighbourhood, beyond someone once having sinful thoughts as they left a fitness class in the market hall.
It is probably a mistake to think of Poundbury as a village or a small town. It is, in fact, a vision - the peculiar fancy of the Prince of Wales. Disillusioned with the ugly urban sprawl of the 1980s, Prince Charles announced that callous modern architects had done more damage to the country than the Luftwaffe. Accordingly, he decided he would have a go himself, and drew up a plan for a community that would combine beautiful dwellings with nearby workplaces and shops; a place where council tenants would mingle with the more prosperous, a place where traditional values would be upheld and kids would play hopscotch in the spotless streets.
It would also be a place where cynics just up on the train from London would have a field day. There would be no television aerials (ugly), no front gardens (divisive), no front-of-house parking (obstructive), nothing at all unsightly or untidy. The place has been open for sneering ever since planning consent was granted in 1989, and work began on the outskirts of Dorchester in Dorset. The land is part of the Duchy of Cornwall, which consists of 126,000 acres in 22 counties, with the primary function of providing an income for the Prince. Poundbury, or New Poundbury as it is known by locals (there is already an older Poundbury nearby – full of the stuff Charles dislikes), will eventually cover 400 acres, although it currently only occupies one tenth of this. ‘Now that it’s a few years old, it’s working well,’ Sue McCarthy-Moore says in her interior design workshop, ‘although there was initially a feeling that it was going to be a Utopia.’

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