Prince to build new traditional village

Prince Charles, already credited with creating Poundbury in Dorset from scratch, is to supervise the building of another traditional English village – this time in the heart of industrial South Wales.

The £1bn project will transform a derelict oil refinery near Neath into an "urban village" over a period of 20 years.

The Prince's Foundation has formed a project partnership with landowners BP and the Welsh Development Agency, and is acting as design consultant and "conscience" to the initiative. Under the scheme, up to 3,000 homes – as well as shops, schools and offices – could be built on the 1,300 acre site at Llandarcy.

Prince Charles is well known for his anti-modernist architectural views, and Poundbury, which was constructed on his own Duchy of Cornwall land, has been seen as an attempt to spearhead a revival of the traditional British vernacular style. It is expected that the Llandarcy site will follow suit.

The Prince of Wales set up the Prince's Foundation in 1999 to "promote a return of human values to architecture, the building arts, urban design and regeneration".

The prince attempted to re-write the rules on urban design in his 1989 book, A Vision of Britain. The Prince's Foundation website gives full details of the plans for the South Wales project and will "draw on formidable traditions of urban design".

Poundbury, in effect an extension of Dorchester, has attracted widespread praise in recent years – most notably from a House of Commons select committee and the Deputy Prime Minister, who commended it as a model for new growth.

According to the Prince's Foundation, the village at Llandarcy will aim to repeat this success, and that of other historic projects to recreate rural villages in urban settings, such as Bournville in Birmingham and Port Sunlight on Merseyside.

The site at Llandarcy, which will become one of the UK's largest brownfield developments, was once occupied by the UK's first oil refinery, established in the 1920s. The closure of the facility was announced in 1997, and much of the land has been cleared, leaving only a few dilapidated office buildings.

The layout of the new village will be based on what the Prince's Foundation describes as "the principles of good urbanism". Houses, offices and shops of all sizes will be mixed together in an attempt to avoid the "ghettos" Prince Charles vehemently opposes.

It is a vision wholeheartedly supported by the Welsh Assembly, also involved in the scheme.

"Community is very important in Wales and that will infuse the whole design," said Andrew Davies, economic development minister of the assembly. "We have learnt a lot of lessons from a past where estates were built without community even being considered."

Llandarcy urban village, which already has planning permission, will be built in stages, with receipts from each funding the following phase.

BP has offered an initial £10m, with the Welsh Development Agency contributing a further £5m and the Welsh assembly adding £750,000. It is hoped that the project will supply about three-quarters of local housing needs and create more than 3,000 jobs over the next generation.