Why is the Duchy of Cornwall moving forward with one of King Charless plans?

King Charles was the Prince of Wales for more than fifty years, and he used that time to grow the Duchy of Cornwall into a real estate empire which functioned more like a business than a remnant of a more feudal era. Charles also fancied himself an expert in organic farming, urban planning and real estate development. He developed Poundbury, a walkable community with environmental cred. He was looking to duplicate that in Faversham, Kent, with a development of 2500 homes on land purchased by the Duchy of Cornwall. Then Charles became king and Prince William became the PoW, and William seemingly hasn’t reviewed or stopped all of his father’s old schemes. Thus, the Faversham development is going forward and there’s a significant amount of outcry from the local community.

The Duchy of Cornwall has been accused of “swallowing up historic villages into one urban mass” with its proposal to build 2,500 homes in a medieval market town. The plan is “totally at odds” with the King’s stance on environmental and farming issues, residents have warned in Faversham, Kent, where it is proposed the estate will be built on 320 acres of agricultural land.

The Duchy has argued that its plans, created when the King, then the Prince of Wales, owned the estate, followed his vision to deliver the “most sustainable” homes possible, while also addressing a housing crisis in the area. However, local residents voiced strong opposition to the proposals as they were put out to public consultation, warning that such a vast development was not aligned with the royal’s purported care for the environment and green spaces.

Faversham, which is about 10 miles from Canterbury, has a population of just 20,000. It sits between farmland and nature reserves, but several residents have warned that the scale of the Duchy’s plans would overshadow the existing town while increasing traffic congestion and pollution. Among the many objections lodged with Swale Borough Council last week was one from Richard Winnett, who said: “The Duchy proposes such a development with the consequential loss of a huge area of fine productive agricultural land. This seems totally at odds with HRH’s public stance on environmental and farming issues.”

Sarah Vomley wrote: “I always thought the Duchy cared about the environment and green spaces, seems I was wrong. They also can’t (or won’t) maintain the houses they already have.”
She said she “strongly” objected to the plan, warning that there would soon be “no agricultural land left” and that the town did not have the infrastructure to support such a development. “We can’t get dentist or doctors appointments as it is now,” she observed.

On a Facebook campaign group, resident Angela Penrose wrote: “It seems there’s no end to the greed of Prince William and King Charles!! It’s a disgrace that they pose as environmentalists when in fact they’re like all developers and it’s purely about the money! And what about food security?? All this Grade 1 and 2 farmland being concreted over.”

[From The Telegraph]

I mean… if there’s a housing crisis, I can understand why the Duchy is trying to do a large-scale housing development, and anything like that is going to involve transforming formerly green spaces and even older farms and such. Are there really obvious compromises to make? For sure. What I find odd is that the Duchy seemingly hasn’t sought to make those compromises already, and they’re plowing ahead with Charles’s vision… and not necessarily William’s vision. Back in February, William unveiled HIS vision of a Duchy housing development – 24 homes built cut-rate for £3 million, all for homeless or low-income people. That’s William’s idea – smaller-scale, cheap, a tiny little band-aid to “fix” a huge problem. And then there’s Charles, who was planning a large-scale development which would transform a medieval hub into a huge 2500-house community, much to the dismay of the community.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

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