Prince's threat to quit charity over architects
Prince Charles threatened to quit as patron of the National Trust unless plans for its new headquarters were changed to suit his architectural tastes, it was claimed today.
A senior royal aide told the charity that the Prince could not accept the design of a proposed £14.5million building in Swindon and if they did not change it he would step down as its president, a source revealed.
Last month Charles successfully scuppered the £1billion Lord Rogers development at Chelsea Barracks, leading to high-profile rows with leading architects.
He was also accused yesterday of trying to have modernist French architect Jean Nouvel removed from the £500million One New Change office and shops complex beside St Paul's Cathedral.
The threat to the National Trust is said to have been made by a former private secretary to the Prince shortly after he took over presidency from the Queen Mother, who died in 2002. It was claimed he requested the power of approval over new architectural projects and asked for his advisers to scrutinise plans for the Swindon headquarters.
One of the Prince's architecture advisers had already told the project team that Prince Charles would not like the plans that showed a triangular, low-profile structure on the site of a former Victorian engineering foundry.
Following the charity's reluctance to redraw plans, there was a tense meeting at St James's Palace, attended by Fiona Reynolds, the director general of the National Trust, and Elizabeth Buchanan, the prince's then private secretary.
"The project reached an impasse. There was a meeting at the palace and the aide threatened the withdrawal of his patronage," a source involved in the project told the Guardian.
The National Trust later managed to persuade Charles of the scheme's merits and it was built, with more than 1,000 photovoltaic panels on the roof.
A Clarence House spokesman said: "The prince won't offer his personal patronage of a building that doesn't feature the principles of sustainability he personally espouses."
