Qatari firm shelves London project on Prince Charles' objections

13 June 2009

The Prince of Wales has forced a Qatari development firm to withdraw its application for a £3-billion housing project in London.

The project, Britain's most expensive housing development, planned at the Chelsea Barracks site in West London was described by the prince as ''unsympathetic'' and ''unsubtle''. Prince Charles has been an outspoken critic of modern architecture.

The prince wrote to the emir of Qatar voicing his concerns at the glass and steel complex opposite the Royal Hospital in Chelsea.

Less than a week before the application was to be put up to the planning committee of Westminster Council, the site's owner Qatari Diar, a property company, withdrew the application.

Meanwhile Lord Rogers, who was the architect of the project blamed the prince for the project's collapse. Rogers had designed the Millennium Dome in East London and the Pompidou Centre in Paris.

The leader of Westminster Council, Colin Barrow, said that the prince gave voice to some misgivings about the architecture which encouraged people to speak out and say things that they were otherwise not have been comfortable articulating. He added that many people came out against the project after the prince's criticism.