The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment partners with the Ideal Home Show

18 March 2010 – Press Release

The Prince of Wales’s Foundation for the Built Environment and the Ideal Home Show has today announced an exciting new partnership to help Britain promote and build better neighbourhoods and communities. The partnership will see the Foundation show how ideal neighbourhoods are as important to our quality of life as ideal homes and what can be done to make our neighbourhoods healthier, livelier, safer, more affordable and kinder to the environment.

Over the next five years, The Prince’s Foundation and the Ideal Home Show will work together to demonstrate to the public how to build for the future, and understand how our buildings and the communities we live in can help improve domestic efficiency and sustainability.

Together The Prince’s Foundation and the Ideal Home Show are committed to giving consumers knowledge and understanding of the built environment and housing development, demystifying the planning process to help people get what they want from new developments and improvements in their own homes and communities.

The Prince’s Foundation believes that we can build in a way that is both sustainable and beautiful. Rather than building more housing estates, it advocates building safe, pleasant and convenient neighbourhoods with nearby shops, schools and play areas.

Speaking about the project, Hank Dittmar, Chief Executive Officer of the Prince’s Foundation for the Build Environment commented: “I am hoping we can find a way to engage with the consumer public and develop a broader understanding about what makes for good neighbourhoods.

“We’ll be showing that it really is still possible to build the kind of houses and neighbourhoods that people want to live in – places that are as pleasant to live in as the best historic neighbourhoods and villages in Britain. We want to encourage home buyers to look both for great houses and great communities.

“We are excited about an ongoing partnership with the Ideal Home Show, demonstrating each year through existing and innovative practical examples how to build places that are genuinely better to live in for all age groups – and which enhance, rather than diminish returns to the natural environment and future generations.”

Lee Newton, Director of Media 10, organisers of the Ideal Home Show said: “The Ideal Home Show traditionally brought groundbreaking building development to the UK public and we hope to reintroduce this through our work with the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment offering the public the opportunity to see the latest developments in building design and community development.”

The partnership between the Prince’s Foundation and the Ideal Home Show will create a public forum, through the introduction of a public survey at this year’s Ideal Home Show by asking visitors what their Ideal Neighbourhood would be, and what their opinions are on the future of housing, development and the increasing environmental concerns surrounding domestic energy use.

The partnership will also see a new scheme introduced that recognises the best in current practice amongst the homebuilders, to be announced in early 2011.

The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment is an educational charity founded by HRH The Prince of Wales and operating to a model of practice-based learning. The Prince's Foundation engages in live projects at the scale of the region, the city, the neighbourhood, the town, in order to develop new ways of regenerating and building more lively and more environmentally sustainable communities.

The Ideal Home Show, Britain’s most loved consumer homes show is now in its 102nd year, and for the first time in its history is under new management. New organisers, award winning events and publishing company Media 10 are looking to revive the show, taking it back to its former glory as the UK’s best, most loved, British Home Show. Media 10 are looking to reposition the event as the leader in homes property, build and design for the consumer public.

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