RESIDENTS of Poundbury, the model village created by the Prince of Wales, have accused his Duchy of Cornwall estate of abandoning its founding principles by building a block of flats in the village.

Local people are outraged over the £50 million development, which they say is motivated by commercial gain and flies in the face of everything Poundbury is about.

They also fear that the Prince, who inspired the model community in West Dorset in 1993, may not be aware of the full extent of the scheme.

Poundbury was set up as a low-density mix of residential and commercial buildings, made from local stone, where low-income families could live and work alongside the upper crust. But residents say that the spirit of Poundbury will be broken if the duchy goes ahead with plans for 31 high-density flats, costing between £150,000 and £170,000, in the village centre.

Dave Dawkins, 40, a planner who lives in the village, said that the duchy is exploiting the idealism of Poundbury to push through applications that would be rejected in other rural communities. He said: “Poundbury is a planning experiment and, being a planner, that’s one of the reasons I moved here. They should be mixing housing and recreation and commercial buildings but that’s not what they are doing.”

The villagers have now formed a pressure group to fight the duchy’s application, which goes to West Dorset planners on August 26.

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