Prince William is said to be considering an ambitious plan to house homeless people in properties owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, and he definitely has a variety of grand homes to choose from for his deserving cause.
While it’s no doubt a noble idea, beneficiaries might be surprised to find themselves transported to the Isles of Scilly which boasts a selection of five-star holiday homes, or Cornwall where they can enjoy sweeping country panoramas from a 500-year-old manor house.
The Duke of Cambridge, 39, who will inherit the 130,000-acre Duchy property portfolio when his father becomes King, has asked staff to explore the possibility of housing those less fortunate than himself in some of the properties that will one day be under his control.
The Duchy, which provides an income to the Prince of Wales, comprises residential and commercial property and livestock farms across 20 counties in England and Wales, including Prince Charles’ utopian town of Poundbury, in Dorset.
There are quaint cottages and seaside homes, formerly rented by the Middletons, as well as £314 million of commercial property.
Much of the estate is presently given over to agriculture, including its 67,000 acres of Dartmoor, and there are 2,980 existing tenancy agreements. The Duchy of Cornwall also owns the Oval cricket ground in Kennington, south London.
So, there’s definitely no shortage of space for Prince William’s pet project, but the question remains, which properties would he choose to convert?
The nine-bedroom Highgrove House, bought by Prince Charles as a country home in 1980 and which was loved by Princess Diana, would make for an extremely plush accommodation that is saturated in generations of royal history.
Or there’s the option of one of the high spec houses on the Isles of Scilly, a favoured destination for royal summer holidays.
The Duke of Cambridge, 39, who’s the patron of youth homelessness charity Centrepoint, has asked staff to examine how some of these buildings could be transformed to supply housing to those in need.
Speaking to a newspaper outlet, a royal source said the idea was at an investigative phase and that there were countless logistical barriers that would need to be overcome, but added that the Duke was interested in finding a way to help ease the homelessness crisis in any way that he could.
The project would have an impact on the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s household finances, for the Duchy has to pay for the official duties of the Prince of Wales, currently Prince Charles, and his family.
However, would these properties be used to house the homeless or is this just more silliness, or are they just looking to score more brownie points?
And if Prince William chooses not to use these properties for homes for the destitute, then he will look extremely bad because it’s better to say nothing, even if you’re considering it, until up to the point when you do something about it, and let’s hope that if people do move in, that it’s our veterans and not dinghy dwellers because British citizens will be watching extremely closely.
If a single refugee is found to be accommodated there, while thousands of UK citizens are left out in the cold, then the Royals, well, their days will be numbered because people are getting tired of the Government putting illegals first.
It’s bad enough that our Government let them into our country, but for them to lead better lives than our actual citizens that are footing the bill is no longer acceptable.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 