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Prince Charles will doubtless be pleased with the impending decision of Westminster Council, which we report today, to scrap Lord Rogers's plan for the redevelopment of the Chelsea Barracks site.
The Prince sparked controversy in April when he wrote to the Qatari royal family, backers of the project, to object to Lord Rogers's glass and steel towers, instead proposing a neo-classical design by architect Quinlan Terry.
Now it appears that the council will force the developers to think again. This is a dispiriting decision.
It is true that many local residents were not keen on Lord Rogers's design, and they should have been involved more in planning.
We hope the developers now consult locals as they come up with an alternative design.
Yet Lord Rogers remains one of this country's most pathbreaking architects.
London, of all places, should be able to find room for his bold and iconic buildings.
By contrast, the Quinlan Terry design was an ininspiring, neo-classical pastiche: it might work in Prince Charles's Poundbury development in Dorset but here it would have looked dull and fusty.
Whatever the Prince's ignorance of architecture, he is welcome to his views; what is irritating is when he attempts to impose his hackneyed tastes on a vibrant capital rather than in his upmarket rural housing estate.
In this case his intervention was particularly arrogant, consisting of a direct appeal to another monarch, over the heads of public officials and elected politicians.
We look forward to an inspiring new architectural design for this important development — and to Prince Charles's silence on the subject.
A future of debt
The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, has added his voice to those calling the bottom of the recession: in an interview today, he says he is “confident but also cautious” over signs of the UK's early recovery.
He also suggests that other European countries, notably Germany, may face greater problems as a result of their sluggishness in tackling weaknesses in the banks.
Mr Darling is a cautious man. Nevertheless, he skates over one huge problem in his eagerness to talk up the UK's prospects: debt.
Britain is in no position to tut-tut over others' banking bailouts or borrowing.
The UK took more rapid action over toxic debts, in part because it had to: after years of lecturing the rest of the EU on the benefits of financial deregulation, it had a bigger problem when its banks ran out of control.
More importantly, the result of those bailouts, and of last November's fiscal stimulus package, is a gigantic debt burden.
Mr Darling's government has saddled Britain with a record £175 billion of borrowing this year and again next, with our debt doubling to 79 per cent of GDP by 2013.
Spending cuts dictated by these eye-watering sums will still be damaging, for example, university provision for children in nappies today.
And while all the world's major economies have taken on substantial extra debt, the UK's is bigger than most.
In the short term, the cuts will threaten the strength of the UK's recovery, as the public sector sheds jobs and cancels orders; meanwhile, redundancies in the private sector are likely to continue for some time.
In the long term, too, though, Mr Darling and Mr Brown's policies will go on causing pain.
We should not forget that, even if it slips the Chancellor's mind as he surveys this week's green shoots.
Festival nation
With this weekend's Isle of Wight festival, Britain's summer festival season at last begins in earnest in all its sunburnt, beery, muddy glory.
We hope the sun shines on those watching The Prodigy and Neil Young: music festivals have bbecome one of the great collective rituals of British culture.
But those unable to escape the capital need not worry: London now has its own outdoor festivals, too, starting with the Wireless in Hyde Park at the start of next month.
Summer's here — but take your wellies, just in case.
Reader views (3)
If the planning process was actually democratic and took account of people's views on appeareance of buildings Charles wouldn;t have needed to get involved as the plans would never have got this far.
- Daryl S, London Shadwell, 13/06/2009 09:17
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john of hackney ..... agreed!! it's about time someone with influence signalled the failure to engage the public as their egotistical designs spew forth onto our beknighted capital. i sense that this so called editorial was penned by a friend of RIBA
- Neil, appreciating aesthetics in london, 13/06/2009 01:18
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It depends on your view, does it not, whether Prince Charles' views are 'hackneyed' or those of the modern masters whose work is so in your face - all concrete and steel straight lines. Inspiring, they ain't.
- John Problem, Hackney UK, 12/06/2009 17:15
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