Prince Charles’s plans for a carbon copy of Buckingham Palace have been thrown out by locals opposing the designs.  His architects designed the new homes which are to be built on land owned by the Duchy of Cornwall.  The plans were for a grand crescent which would look exactly like Buckingham Palace, almost a replica.

Locals were outraged that the Prince would even consider such a proposal.  The residents of Truro thought that the scheme was too grand and so the regal pillars on the design have been shelved.  The development is on the edge of Truro and will include a Waitrose supermarket and a park and ride depot along with the new homes.  The Prince has been accused of selling out his green credentials as he is building in the countryside.  They also worry that a big out of town superstore will affect the stores in the town centre. Continue reading →

Prince Charles first dabbled in property developing back in 1994 when he built Poundbury, his model town in Dorset.   Soon Tregunnel Hill on the outskirts of Newquay in Cornwall will become another Duchy of Cornwall development.  It looks as though the planners there will give the go ahead this month for 170 homes to be built on a 10 acre plot on the southwest edge of the town.  Eventually 1,000 homes will be built there but this is just the first stage of the development.

This model village has been decades in the planning and whilst many of the big volume house builders scaled back on their construction, Prince Charles is stepping up his.  So far Prince Charles has built 1,200 homes on 250 acres of Duchy of Cornwall land and in the next decade he is hoping to build 17,000 more.  This time he hopes to be building all over the country.  An important property fact is that Prince Charles built more homes in 2009 than the volume builder Persimmon Homes. Continue reading →