PRINCE GIVES BACKING TO A FUTURE ON STILTS

09:00 - 29 March 2008

 

Prince Charles looks set to give the royal stamp of approval to ideas to adapt the design of homes in Gloucestershire to help combat flood risks.Lady Mavis Dunrossil, chairman of Gloucestershire County Council and the Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Rev Michael Perham accompanied by mayors from the county, have written to the Prince of Wales to ask for his support. It will look at ways to redesign homes such as putting those on flood plains on stilts.

Last week Lady Dunrossil received a letter from Manon Williams, the Prince's deputy private secretary, pledging his support.

It read: "Your letter has been the subject of lively correspondence between this office, the Prince of Wales and His Royal Highness's Foundation for the Built Environment.

 

"In short, His Royal Highness would be delighted if you and the other councils would be willing to work with his Foundation for the Built Environment on these pressing and important matters.

"The Foundation's chief executive is aware of your interest and has assigned his colleague to make contact with you and explore how to take forward your ideas about improving the design of new homes and the adaptation of exiting stock with a particular view to combating flood risks.

"The Prince of Wales has asked me to keep him closely informed of developments."

Delighted Lady Dunrossil said: "I am pleased it looks like Prince Charles will be lending his support.

"The original letter sent was saying that, in view that a certain percentage of housing is going to be constantly exposed to flooding, we thought he would be interested in pursuing or awarding decisions that take account of that.

"None of us wants to see housing built in flood plains but this is likely to happen and some existing housing stock will be constantly effected.

"Prince Charles has always been interested in design and lives in the county so we thought maybe he would sponsor an award for a design or do something that would encourage the people who build houses to consider flooding.

"We want to minimise the risk of the enormous losses people suffer when they are flooded."

She added: "We just felt we ought to pursue prevention and that if people took advance planning it would be help-ful.

"The first thing will be to meet with Prince Charles' design team and see what he can do.

"Measures could include houses on stilts or could be just changing the layout of the ground floor of houses."

There will be a meeting on April 14 with everybody who signed the letter.