Prince Charles has selected Crown Street development in Gorbals as one of three examples of good, sustainable regeneration in the UK.

He invited Scottish Enterprise Glasgow’s regeneration specialist, Brian Fitch, left, who oversees the Crown Street masterplan, to a high powered ‘think tank’ at his home, Highgrove House in Gloucester, to discuss the issues around financing such future projects.

‘The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment has been researching good examples of urban development for two years and their people have visited Crown Street several times,’ said Brian. ‘It is a major feather in Glasgow City’s cap that this project has been chosen by the Prince of Wales as one of only three exemplar projects.’

The other two were villages built on green field sites. ‘Crown Street was the only urban and brownfield location,’ said Brian.

On the day, around thirty experts considered how the financial institutions could develop new methods of financing regeneration projects at an earlier stage. Brian outlined how Scottish Enterprise Glasgow had spent £5m and attracted £75m from the private sector to create 1850 homes with 75% being owner occupied and the remainder for social renting.

‘It was ground breaking to have the local community on the steering group in 1990,’ Brian commented, ‘The result was that the community took ownership of the changes. This was reinforced by the architects who committed to working to the highest standards affordable.’

Brian invited the Prince to return to Gorbals and see progress for himself. ‘He said he’d try to do that,’ said Brian. ‘He is very knowledgeable, committed and clearly very involved in these issues. I hope that the day will have helped change some people’s perceptions especially in the financial institutions. Altogether it was a win-win occasion, though it was a bit alien to have armed police train their guns on me at the security gate.’