“Planners have granted permission to build Sherford, a brand new town for 12,000 people, in South Devon that is billed as Britain’s greenest settlement. Work is expected to begin later this year to transform rolling countryside near Plymouth into the experimental new town with 5,500 homes. In Sherford, cars will be banned from some parts and 390ft wind turbines will loom over a 400-acre car park on the outskirts.”

Half the power needs for the new town will come from renewable sources — with all home sporting solar panels. Additionally, most of the materials to build the town will be sourced from a 50-mile radius! The business section — which will provides jobs for about 7,000 people — will be covered in either green roofs or “covered in a thin layer of rubble to attract insects and birds.” Everything about the town will be organized to encourage walking; not to mention all waste including water and sewage will be recycled to cut CO2 emissions. All of this, and Charles intends to give it a traditional English charm — with the theme being modeled on the Wiltshire market town of Marlborough.

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There will be a ban on building anything over five stories – and on uPVC windows, which Charles is said to hate. To capture the spirit of a traditional English town, there will be a dedicated cricket pitch and a bowling green. It will also have a town hall, a square, a health centre, neighbourhood centres and three primary schools and one second school, plus a community park the size of 300 football pitches. Homes, shops and workplaces will be within walking distance of each other to reduce car use, and all waste including water and sewage would be recycled to cut carbon emissions.

But not everybody welcomed the development, particularly as it will concrete over a large swath of green countryside. More than a mile of hedgerow will be destroyed causing the loss of wildlife habitats, although the developers promise they will plant more native trees and that farmland birds such as the linnet will be relocated to the community park. The wind turbines would also alter the view of a nearby Iron Age hill fort.

In 2005, Charles risked being branded a hypocrite for battling plans to build a wind turbine in his own backyard at Balmoral. He believed it would be a blot on the landscape and the turbine's constant whirr would disturb the peace. But unlike at Poundbury, Charles does not own the land for Sherford and does not have any direct control over what is built. When Sherford was first proposed, there were 3,000 objections from the neighbouring village of Brixton, but most of the opposition was dropped after residents were invited to take part in the design process. Derek Curtis, a parish councillor, said: "This is beautiful countryside with a stream running through, and it's a damn shame. "But we have decided to make the best of it. We have all been to see Poundbury and architecturally it was much better than what local councils and house-builders had done in the past."

James Koe, a partner at Red Tree, said: "It is not every day that you get approval to build a town, subject of course to very detailed conditions, and this is a unique opportunity to show what can be done if the right skill-sets and passion are focused on the job. "Our task is to ensure that Sherford is a community which will be vibrant and a place in which people love to live and work."