THE Prince of Wales, who has a history of uneasy relations with Beijing, is to oversee a revamp of Chinatown in London to make it more authentically Chinese. Plans include elaborate timber arches, carved by craftsmen in Beijing, and stone dragons flanking the entrances to tiled courtyards.

Charles hopes the resulting “Sino-Victorian” streetscape will tastefully blend the Chinese roots of inhabitants with the British architecture. The area’s neon lights and smells of cooking food, however, are unlikely to be swept away entirely for fear of the area becoming too sani-tised.

The plans for Chinatown, in the Soho district of central London, may also help the prince to smooth his personal relations with Beijing. When he said he would not be attending this summer’s Olympics in China, it was widely interpreted as a protest against the country’s human rights record. He has referred to the country’s Communist leaders as “appalling old waxworks”.

Charles has met the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, on several occasions and is expected to do so again this month.

The Chinatown project epito-mises Charles’s desire for buildings to reflect their roots, as in Poundbury, his traditional-style model town in Dorset.

Hank Dittmar, chief executive of the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment, said: “This is less about politics, more about a genuine interest in urbanism. Chinatown is an eclectic mixture of Victorian and east Asian styles and our job is to try to understand, then enhance the qualities.”

The foundation, the prince’s architectural think tank, is leading a two-day seminar this month with leaders of the Chinese community and council-lors from the City of Westminster to draw up ideas for the redesign.

Charles’s foundation has already begun a project in China to preserve Beijing’s hutongs, the traditional lanes of houses being swept away by the city’s rapid modernisation.

The London project came about after officials from Westminster council met the prince during a visit to Chinatown last November. Consultations with locals are being paid for by an anonymous Chinese millionaire based in Britain and there are hopes the Chinese embassy in London will raise further financial support from businesses.

A Clarence House spokesman denied the project was in any way intended to mend bridges with Beijing, saying the prince had a “good relationship” with the Chinese government.

Chinatown is designated a conservation area; its brightly decorated streets are lined by restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets and traditional Chinese pharmacies. The project envisages turning some of the pedestrianised routes into courtyards linked by traditional Chinese arches.

Ideas include replacing trees with native Chinese vegetation, installing pagodas and commissioning architects and masons from Beijing to make stone porticoes for shop fronts. Architects have been commissioned to design canopies for street corners out of carved stone, timber and traditional green glazed tiles.

Tom Welton, a director of Shaftesbury plc, which owns much of the property in the area and is involved in the project, said: “Chinatown is all about neon lights, smells, chaotic atmosphere. We don’t want to sanitise it so it loses that special magic but we do want to upgrade the quality of the experience.”

Suzannah Kwok, a campaigner from the London Chinatown Chinese Association, said the redevelopment should be governed by feng shui, traditional Chinese principles governing the layout of buildings.

The council’s plans to move the position of the gate marking the entrance to Chinatown have already caused controversy – feng shui experts argue the new position will bring less good luck.

Norman Baker MP, president of the Tibet Society and a member of the all-party parliamentary group for Tibet, welcomed Charles’s involvement in the project but said it was important he was not seen to “appease” China. “His stance on Tibet is obviously going to cause some tension but I think it’s very important that he maintains his position,” he said.

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