Dignitaries tour prince's village

The Prince of Wales hoped to inspire leaders from the Middle East and America by leading them on a tour of his model village's architecture.

Delegates including the Crown Prince of Bahrain visited Poundbury in Dorset to see Charles' vision of urban planning.

The prince created Poundbury, an urban extension to nearby Dorchester built on Duchy of Cornwall land, after deriding contemporary architecture.

On Friday, he gave a presentation to a group of visiting dignitaries.

They included the Bahraini minister for planning, Sheikh Hammed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, the Egyptian minister for housing, Eng Ahmed Al-Maghrabi, and Gary Cain, chairman of the US Urban Real Estate Group.

Construction began in Poundbury in 1993 and the village now has 1,100 people living in a mixture of affordable, social and privately-owned housing, designed to be indistinguishable from one another.