An urban village: Coed Darsey, The Prince's Welsh Village

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_jvC39sxow

Watch this video about Coed Darsey, the Welsh village that has been designed and built following
the inspiration of Prince Charles in Poundbury. In his interview, Prince Charles tells us about his
views on building and creating an environment, and the impact of all this on our daily quality of life.

Part 1 (up to 123)

1 What does forty years refer to?
2 How is Prince Charles interest in the built environment described?
3 When were the first houses built in Coed Darsey?
4 What does twenty refer to?
Part 2 (up to 237)
5 What does walking have to do with the Coed Darsey?
6 What is understood by extended family in the context of life in Coed Darsey?
7 What is the spirit of a place?
Part 3 (up to 430)
8 In the Dimbleby Lecture, what does Charles say hes been trying to understand in the last 30 years?
9 What does Prince Charles say we have discarded, abandoned, denigrated in our lives?
10 What has Prince Charles been accused of?
Part 4 (up to 540)
11 What does Amanda Baillieu think of Prince Charles project?
12 What does Malcolm Parry mean with the expression maybe?
Part 5 (up to 642)
13 What was Prince Charles described as when he first entered the building debate?
14 What is he described as now?
15 What does Prince Charles have, according to Amanda Baillieu?
16 What path has Prince Charles chosen in his life, according to Hank Dittmar?
Part 6 (up to 750)
17 What does Prince Charles say to defend himself from the attacks?
18 How does he view the future?
Part 7 (up to the end)
19 What real questions does the reporter ask himself?
20 What areas has Prince Charles been interested in?

It's forty years since his Royal Highness Prince Charles was crowned Prince of Wales and over those forty years he's been
involved in a number of issues and had a number of projects but none has been more controversial and excited more public
debate than his interest in the build environment.
Coed Darsey is intended to be a whole new community built from scratch. Its near Neath in West Glamorgan and the first
houses started going up in February 2009. The development will continue for twenty years. Since becoming Prince of Wales
some have said that Charles has done little outwardly in this principality. Will Coed Darsey change that because the Prince's
foundation for the build environment has a key role in this development. In the course of an exclusive interview, I intend to ask
the Prince to tell me about his plans.
Ive been trying to break the commercial mould, which I happen to think is unfit for purpose in the 21st century with the kind of
challenges the world is now facing.
The Prince's foundation has researched what they call mind, body and spirit, the human response to the environment, which
they intend to include in the building of Coed Darsey.
The body is a relatively straightforward one in that if youre, if you're walking to get your daily needs on foot and you're walking
to work or youre walking to school just half an hour of walking a day really does a lot for your health in terms of reducing
obesity, especially amongst children, and reducing heart disease. So again a walkable neighborhood is not just a convenient
thing but it's actually a healthy thing. I think in terms of the mind, if you're designing a development where you're creating public
spaces like streets and squares, where you meet your neighbors and you meet other people, it gives you an understanding of a
kind of extended family, it's a social place to be, rather than a more privatised place to be that relies on private transport like the
car. So when you get onto more difficult things to define like the spirit of the place, that gets into things like beauty, you know,
which people respond to I dont like to define, but if you have an inspiring place where the buildings are beautiful and the
landscape is beautiful, it has a positive impact on the way you feel and your quality of life.
The prince was given the opportunity to present his thinking in the 2009 Dimbleby Lecture.
In the thirty years or so that Ive been attempting to understand and address the many related problems, I had tried to dig deep
and ask myself what it is in our general attitude to the world that is ultimately at fault in doing so, of course, it must have
appeared as though I was just fleeting from one subject to another, from agriculture two architecture, from education to health
care, but I was merely trying to point out where the imbalance is most acute, where the essential unity of things as reflected in
nature was being dangerously fragmented and deconstructed.
The point is people are drawn by, by the quality the environment they enjoy, the atmosphere of it, the character, the sense that it
relates to their own humanity and once you start to, to make an intervention in an area where there's been a lot of deprivation of
that order, the environment is being destroyed people will respond to it. I mean, we have to look around now to see that the
damage we've been doing to the entire planet should make us sit and think that perhaps we should bring some things back
needlessly thrown away like our relationship with nature, for instance, which has been, again I think needlessly discarded,
abandoned, denigrated to the point where we have expunged any reference to nature, at all from lives or from the way we build
from what we surround ourselves with. Were creating such dangers for ourselves. All these things I've been trying to point out
for years but to a chorus, opposite people say, well you just want to turn the clock back. Well that's a pretty fatuous sort of
argument, isnt it?
It would seem that the Prince's come to Wales to make a larger statement than just building a new urban village. His foundation
is producing a template for life. This village is a sort of crucible of his beliefs. Can it really work?
I think thats the real issue about trying to do these places, its now you're saying we can make a community. You can't make
communities, and the prince should understand that because he's very interested in sort of organic forms in terms of the
architecture, how things evolve, you know, he does understand that. So why does he not understand that you cant build these
places and people them with, with, you know, sort of mismarked types on bikes you know going down the high street and
somebody bowling a hoop.
I think you look at Coed Darsey and you see the street being reintroduced again, it's near to an existing community and I
suspect, I, like most other members of profession will go maybe.
Is this the first time youve originally done something in this country as far as?
Yes, it is.
When he first entered this debate twenty-five years ago the Prince was scorned as ignorant and opinionated. More recently he's
been accused of being something rather more effective, powerful. He's one of the few people in Britain in a position to take on a
project like Poundbury or Coed Darsey.
He doesnt have actual power but he has influence, you see and thats almost the same thing if youre the prince and people are
very wary of that.
His intention to make a difference in his life means that he's taken a more difficult path for himself he could have easily I think,
you know, spent his life skiing and, and playing polo and hes chosen not to do that, and people give him a lot of stick having
made a choice that he wants to make things better.
Do you feel yourself that you have too much power? Youve been accused of having too much power.
I havent got any power at all. What power have I got? Ive only got the power of ideas and people don't like that, do they,
because you're suggesting that there's another way of looking at things, I have prepared to be politely for a long time there's a
more integrated way of looking at things. I happened to mind deeply about it, any people want to pay any attention, they can. If
they don't want to, as you noticed only too well, they dont. But the trouble is that Ive been trying to break the commercial mould
which I happen to think is unfit for purpose in the 21st century with the kind of challenges the world is now facing. Many of those
challenges have been man-made, surprise, surprise, and all I'm saying is that unless we alter some of these ways and bring the
baby back that was thrown out with the bath water, then I'm sorry but the problems going to be so enormous that I don't want to
be around to see them. I don't want your children or grandchildren or other people's to have to suffer the consequences of all
this. And I still think that the built in environment is an important part of all that.
Coed Darsey is a twenty-year project, so I think there was a little bit more talking to be done but at the moment the focus seems
to be on Prince Charles versus major architect, but those are not questions at all.
The real questions are: How can we create a sense of place in new building and green spaces? Will we walk or drive to work?
Can we make new communities where we can live in harmony and how densely can we do that? These are planning and
development issues.
Nothing else. Coed Darsey brings some of those hidden mysteries out into the open.
So all these things are interlinked, I believe, and all Im trying to do so far in my life with great difficulties to try and explain why
I've been particularly interested in these areas: environment, agriculture, architecture and built environment, healthcare and an
education, because all these things matter in terms of how we relate to the world and how we rediscover that essential harmony
I think its important to rediscover with, with nature.