Prince Charles is speaking for Londoners on design

While media attention has focused on the private correspondence of the Prince of Wales, the Evening Standard's editorial on 12 August declared that these planning issues were more important than the "style war" being waged between the Prince and the architecture community.

This isn't just about style. The assertion that the prince didn't see the larger issues was erroneous, and the Chelsea Barracks and One New Change cases can demonstrate the point.

In his lecture to the Royal Institute of British Architecture this year, the Prince argued that there is "a much more fundamental division than that between Classicism and Modernism: namely the one between "top-down" and "bottom-up" approaches to architecture ... There remains a gulf between those obsessed by forms (and Classicists can be as guilty of this as Modernists, Postmodernists or Post-Postmodernists), and those who believe that communities have a role to play in design and planning."

Your editorial called for a genuine public consultation, and, in fact, serious community engagement is key to the prince's foundation's Enquiry By Design process, which brings officials and residents together to reach a consensus on the ultimate plan. This approach contrasts with the "show and tell" that passes for consultation in most major schemes.

I am pleased that the Chelsea Barracks developer has engaged a firm to adapt these principles to the new master planning effort there. Your editorial also argued that land values had forced the densities to be too high. Indeed, the prince spoke about this issue in 2008, when he said "these location efficiencies can be achieved easily by traditional English building types, including the four- to five-storey terrace and the six- to 10-storey mansion block. It's worth remembering this. In fact, Kensington and Chelsea, which lacks tower blocks, is the densest London borough."

To test this point, The foundation looked at the density of Chelsea neighbourhoods near the Barracks site and found the densities required could be accommodated through a master plan of traditional London blocks with a four- to six-storey mansion block. The master planning will allow this premise to be evaluated in detail.

The idea of starting with a master plan merits an explanation. The tendency nowadays, even for large sites, is for architects to treat the site as a heroic composition, or even as a single massive building. The Paternoster Square development next to St Paul's Cathedral is a good example of a more robust approach. There, after controversy, a master plan of blocks and buildings was developed involving a number of architects. The street and building pattern was eventually built, and the result is an addition to the City of London's streetscape, with both traditional and modernist buildings by many hands rather than one pair of hands.

The past decade has seen an increasing emphasis on heroic schemes, ratified by expert design review panels and passed by planning officials cowed by expertise and the desire to be "cool". In saying the emperor is wearing no clothes, the prince is only speaking for most Londoners who look at these projects and wonder how they got approved. At least with Chelsea Barracks there is the chance to get it right. For the site next to St Paul's, it is too late.

Hank Dittmar is chief executive of The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment.