PORTMEIRION – an Italianate model village in North Wales

Portmeirion has served as the location for numerous films and television shows, most famously the cult TV-show “The Prisoner” (1967) starring Patrick McGoohan.   I mention it here because its founder – Sir Clough William-Ellis (1883-1978) – shared my hatred for the ugly sprawl urbanisation which is like a virus destroying the wonderful English countryside.   

Hard to believe that this is not Italy, but North Wales..!

Portmeirion was never a normal lived-in village, it has always been used as a hotel and tourist attraction – mostly these days as a wedding venue.

Nostalgic and whimsical, but nothing about the pretty village suggests an ecological purpose.

I was fortunate to visit Portmeirion on a bright sunny day in Nov (2008)

Portmeirion Village charges admission in order to control visitor numbers and contribute towards upkeep.  Oasis Cities will do likewise

 

Subsequent to my visit I did some reading-up on the founder of Portmeirion – Sir Clough William-Ellis – and discovered we share similar views.  He loved the English countryside dearly and hated the massive inter-war “building-boom” which was littering the countryside with low-density bland brick suburbia.  According to his book “England and the Octopus” one of his reasons for building Portmeirion was to demonstrate that high population density could be very attractive.  

In 1926 he founded the CPRE (Council for the Protection of Rural England) – more recently chaired by Bill Bryson – and was instrumental in setting up the British National Parks after 1945.  He wrote and broadcast extensively on architecture, design and the preservation of the rural landscape.

 

CWE’s urban philosophy bears comparison with Richard Register , an advocate of Mediterranean-style pedestrian cities which “would reduce automobile dependence, global warming, massive sprawl, ecological habitat fragmentation, air and water pollution and other harms.”

 

His 1928 book “England and the Octopus” was an impassioned outcry at the destruction of the countryside through rampant urbanisation.

What would Sir Clough have thought of the “Oasis-Cities” concept?  

Or Prince Charles, given his disdain for what he has derided as

“Monstrous Carbuncles”..?

Like most people, I imagine both would initially hate the idea of enormous residential pyramids squatting in the countryside.  But, given the far worse alternative of interminable sprawl housing estates – which occupy 10x as much land per inhabitant and are esthetically very un-attractive – if there were an Oasis-City “show city”, the naysayers would surely be converted.   

OA-Cities would potentially save enormous swathes of green-fields from the ecological and aesthetic holocaust that politicians are demanding – 300,000+ bland brick boxes every year.  Not to mention all the roads, roundabouts and commercial infrastructure needed to service them.

OA-Cities would not just preserve the countryside – they would ENHANCE and BEAUTIFY it..!   

And if, as I propose, 25% of each site is planted with trees, they would also re-afforest one of the least forested countries in Europe..!