Prince Charles spider letters released

Secret letters sent by Prince Charles to government ministers have finally been made public after a 10-year court battle.

The correspondence — known as the “black spider” memos because of the heir to the throne’s unusual handwriting style — was sent between September 2004 and March 2005, when Tony Blair was prime minister.

The 27 letters were published by The Guardian, the Information Commissioner and the Cabinet Office yesterday afternoon.

The court fight to have them published is estimated to have cost the taxpayer £400,000 (€555,000) in legal fees.

The letters reveal a keen working relationship between the Prince of Wales and Mr Blair.

The prince criticised the then-Labour government for transferring responsibility for the regeneration of a former NHS hospital asylum, which he said would “inevitably undermine the health vision as other priorities take precedence over time”.

He wrote that he risked being a “complete bore” in a letter to then-health secretary John Reid and asked him to “forgive my persistence” on the matter of the Victorian Cherry Knowle site in Sunderland, which was decommissioned in 1995.

The prince, who has been long outspoken in his passion for the preservation and restoration of buildings for the benefit of the local community, wanted to see it redeveloped for housing and a new hospital but feared the plans created by his Foundation for the Built Environment would not be realised after responsibility for the site was transferred from the NHS to the non-departmental English Partnerships Agency in 2004.

“I have hesitated to bother you too much on this issue, and on the wider one of the disposal of hundreds of NHS hospital sites, but I feel now is the time to return to the fray!,” he wrote in February 2005.

Referring to visiting the site with Mr Reid over a year earlier, he said he believed he had been “enthusiastic about the holistic and integrated nature” of the plans by his foundation.

But he added: “I hope you will forgive my persistence on this issue, but despite your helpful updates, the log-jam to which I referred in my letter of last August shows little sign of alleviation and it saddens me greatly to think that the immense progress and collective enthusiasm gathered twelve months ago is now in danger of being lost.”

The prince said he thought the “continuing hiatus seems to be due in no small part to the protracted negotiations undertaken as part of the residual estate transfer to the ODPM [Office of the Deputy Prime Minister].”

He wrote that a “vital feature” of the foundation’s plan was that it should be “capable of delivery by the NHS as custodian of the overall vision”.

Charles asked if there was any way responsibility for the site could remain within the remit of the NHS or of ensuring the proposed plans for Cherry Knowle went through. He also questioned whether there could be scope for a broader partnership with his foundation in regard to other NHS estates.

In a reply to Charles in March 2005 to “allay” his concerns, Mr Reid said: “I can assure you that I take the matter of the Cherry Knowle Development very seriously, and am hopeful that it will provide a model for future such collaborations.”

But Charles’s fears were realised as for years Cherry Knowle continued to fall into further disrepair until it was finally demolished in 2012.

The site is now owned by the Homes and Communities Agency.