Princely sums — royal family hoovers up cash from land as homelessness surges in UK

The Prince of Wales was visiting Cape Town last week when the documentary series Dispatches on the UK’s Channel 4 dropped a sensational investigation into how the royal family has raked in huge profits from its private medieval estates.

The future British monarch was in the former colony to hand over the Earthshot Prize, collectively worth £5-million each year. It was established in 2020 by Prince William to promote innovative solutions to environmental challenges that can be scaled globally.

So far, so lekker.

This week he also announced – at the 2024 United for Wildlife Global Showcase – a new initiative supporting rangers and anti-poaching and environmental protection initiatives. United for Wildlife, founded by William in 2013, is a global alliance of public, private and nonprofit organisations working in the field.

So far, still so lekker.

From whence doth come thy riches?

Ancient medieval estates have been in the possession of the British monarchy for more than 700 years. Before that, the Empire held sway over a quarter of the world’s wealth, including ours.

Now it is Brexit Island, a shadow of its former self, plagued by the second-highest homelessness rate in the so-called developed world, after the US.

Try a land claim in the UK and you will wait till kingdom come, so to speak.

The King, the Prince and Their Secret Millions, a joint Sunday Times and Dispatches investigation, aired in the UK on 4 November.

Months of research turned up that the royal family received millions via the Crown Estate, which will generate an income of £86-million this year alone, with some extra petty cash coming in from the duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster.

The Duchy of Lancaster, which belongs to King Charles, is a portfolio of land, property and assets throughout England and Wales that is held in trust for the sovereign. These properties include key urban developments, historic buildings, high-quality farmland and areas of great natural beauty, and some date back to the 14th century.

The Duchy of Cornwall, founded on 17 March 1337, belongs to the Prince of Wales. Exempt from paying corporation or capital gains tax, William and Charles are not legally required to pay income tax on what they receive from the duchies, but both voluntarily do so.

So far, getting not so lekker.

The Channel 4 investigation came on the heels of an ITV feature aired the week before showcasing William’s initiative, Homewards, which works with private and “social landlords” in six locations in the UK to end homelessness.

The prince, bless him, launched the project in Sheffield, England, where the sponsor, home improvement retailer Homebase, revealed  plans “during the gathering of the landlords” to offer 33 three- and four-bedroom properties to “families on the brink or experiencing homelessness in the city”.

Lay of the land

The lay of the land phesheya kolwandle (across the ocean) is a Zanu-PF or MK party wet dream. Government ownership of the bulk of the land. The best of it – the forests, the most arable of the hills and valleys.

In the UK, the government is the largest land owner and the Crown Estate, worth £15.6-billion, is one of its largest property managers.

This heavy lean towards the historically privileged is achieved through quangos, semi-public administrative bodies. They receive financial support from the government, but work independently. However, the government also happens to make senior appointments to these entities.

Read more: WATCH: Life adjacent – The narrow gap between those with homes and those without

Quangos on Brexit Island include 48 in the Ministry of Defence, three in the Forestry Commission and 107 in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The Crown Estate and Homes England, the government’s housing agency, are also quangos.

The monarchy, through the Crown Estate, a corporation that manages the king’s “land and holdings”, includes more than 615,000 acres of land, several properties in central London, Ascot Racecourse as well as Windsor Great Park. The estate enigmatically does not belong to the government, nor is it part of the monarch’s private estates. Creative accounting?

Zulu monarch King Misuzulu, through the Ingonyama Trust, owns a paltry 2.8 million hectares in this here republic. Put that in your royal pipe and smoke it.

Castles and cardboard

The problem with growing homelessness worldwide is the skewed pyramid of private land ownership versus housing security for taxpayers and the poor.

In the UK, homelessness has been criminalised with laws such as the Vagrancy Act 1824 being applied, and the more recent public spaces protection orders, which some councils have tried to use against homeless people or those sleeping rough.

The archaic Vagrancy Act was promulgated when mass land privatisation was rolled out, displacing those without the means to buy property.

Not so lekker.

Ask us, we know in South Africa. In the same week the prince made a turn in Cape Town, homeless people living outside the Castle of Good Hope were removed.

Read more: Castle of Good Hope occupiers evicted under court order

Vagrancy and homelessness have been brought under surveillance and control in the UK and globally, rather than being declared the national or international crises that they are.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown, but heavier still is his family’s purse. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.