The full text of an emotional letter from the Prince of Wales to the Qatari Prime Minister, arguing against the design of a £3 billion housing project, was made public yesterday.
The Prince’s intervention is alleged to have resulted in the Qatari Royal Family cancelling the scheme, on the site of Chelsea Barracks in Central London — to the fury of Lord Rogers of Riverside, who helped to design it. The disclosure of the letter, on Clarence House headed notepaper, shows how the Prince underlined words to heighten the impact of his message. The Prince, whose handwriting appears at the top and bottom of the letter, underscored words such as “want”, “timeless”, “deeply” and “beauty”.
The letter has been published after it was cited in evidence in a hearing at the High Court, where Nick and Christian Candy, who are property developers, claim they are owed £81 million by Qatari Diar, a development company controlled by the Qatari Royal Family, for breach of contract.
The Prince wrote on March 1, 2009, that he had witnessed the “destruction of so many parts of London” at the hands of Brutalist architects. “This gigantic experiment with the very soul of our capital city ... has reached the point where it is no longer sustainable in our day and age,” he wrote. His letter, which he sent three months before a meeting with Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, acknowledges his efforts to intervene. “I am so sorry to have to write to you on this subject, and thus to be so interfering, but [Chelsea Barracks] is a site of great [underlined] importance in London and therefore deserves something that is appropriate to its context and worthy of its position next to the Royal Hospital.”
He adds: “I hate to labour this point, but I really do not think I am alone in being deeply [underlined] concerned about what happens to the old Chelsea Barracks site ... I can only urge [underlined] you to reconsider the plans for the Chelsea site before it is too late. Many would be eternally [underlined] grateful to Your Excellency if Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment could bequeath a unique and enduring [underlined] legacy to London, and my Foundation for the Built Environment would be only too delighted to work with you if you felt it could be of any help.”
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John Olsson, director of the Forensic Linguistics Institute, told London’s Evening Standard newspaper that the Prince had used personal touches to be as persuasive as possible. “The Prince’s language is so visceral, so nakedly emotional,” he said. “While some may argue that this language shows a disregard of consequences, others might feel that it is equally the language of courage and conviction.”
The Prince concludes by inviting the Emir to visit Poundbury, a settlement in Dorset that he sponsors, to see the commercial success of traditionalist architecture. “This is a ground-breaking extension to the town and I would love [underlined] you to come and see it in the near future (I am going there on 24th March), if you ever had the time . . .”
Mr Justice Vos is to deliver his verdict on the case tomorrow.