Prince William to sell 20% of Duchy of Cornwall to focus on housing and climate crisis
William inherited the estate - a portfolio of land, property and investments valued at more than £1 billion – when his father became King
The Prince of Wales will sell off 20% of the Duchy of Cornwall over the next ten years and invest £500 million in addressing the housing and nature crises.
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William plans to sell a fifth of the estate - a portfolio of land, property and investments valued at more than £1 billion – which he inherited when his father became King.
The Duchy Estate provides William, who is the 25th Duke of Cornwall, nearly £23 million a year in private income.
The money is used to fund the charitable, private and official lives of William, the Princess of Wales and their children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.
The prince will consolidate his holdings around five geographic “heartlands”, focusing on the Isles of Scilly, Cornwall, Dartmoor, the Bath area and Kennington, south London, The Times reported.
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Will Bax, chief executive of the Duchy of Cornwall, told The Times that William decided the duchy “shouldn’t just exist to own land. It should first and foremost exist to have a positive impact on the world”.
Mr Bax said of the plan to sell off about a fifth of the duchy estate: “If we don’t see an opportunity for positive impact, then perhaps we don’t need to be a part of that place.
“But where there is social need and where there is environmental challenge and where there is an opportunity to enable change, then we’ll be a great partner in working with people to achieve that.”
Mr Bax said the prince planned to invest £500 million, made up from land sales, development income, partnerships and borrowing, into his priorities.
That includes investing £160 million into tackling the housing crisis, including building affordable homes in the Isles of Scilly, Cornwall and Kennington.
In March this year, tenants of the Duchy of Cornwall said they had been left “enormously stressed” following plans to sell off land on an estate in Devon.
The Bradninch estate, near Cullompton, has been part of the duchy for centuries.
Mr Bax told The Times all 10 tenants were “engaged in a conversation around buying their farm” and he believes the majority of them would.