Like a silly moustache on a dignified friend

IT'S enough to restore your faith in democracy: an elected councillor of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea dares to tell Historic Royal Palaces, and behind them the royal family, the truth.

Which is that their proposed tinkering with one of the architectural treasures in their care is damaging and unnecessary.

For the proposed loggia is, as councillor Daniel Moylan says, twee. It is fussy, pointless, inept, badly scaled and insensitive. It is a silly moustache on the face of a dignified friend. It is neither in the style of the original palace, nor of the present day.

The proposed landscaping, too, seems to fiddle and twirl to no purpose.

The great thing about Kensington Palace is its modesty. "Never did any powerful monarch," wrote historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner of its builder William III, "build a less ostentatious palace".

All the more reason why it should not be disfigured with pretension.

It will not be a coincidence that the architect of the loggia is John Simpson, who has been tirelessly promoted by Prince Charles for 20 years. But royal palaces are part of our collective heritage, not the playthings of princes, and they should not be subjected to the fancies of royal favourites.

The basic aim of Historic Royal Palaces is to open up the palace and sort out a somewhat messy landscape to the east. This is admirable, but would be achieved much better without the loggia, and with plainer landscaping.

It is up to the planning committee to permit or refuse the proposal. If an ordinary citizen owned a Grade-I listed 17th century house and wanted to alter it in this way, they would be turned down. The same rule should apply to royalty.