The Duchy of Cornwall will sell off 20% of its property over the next 10 years and pour £500m into local communities as part of a major overhaul that puts the Isles Of Scilly among its key priorities. The plan, announced as the property empire moves to reshape how it uses its 128,000 acres across 19 counties, also sets a target of providing an extra 12,000 homes by 2040.
The duchy said about a third of those homes will be affordable, with £161m set aside for housing, £123m for work places, rural jobs and renewable energy support, and £20m for environmental schemes and reducing emissions. The investment package also includes an expansion of rooftop solar panels in the south west of England aimed at generating enough power for 40,000 homes, alongside work to restore peatlands and biodiversity on duchy estates.
Will Bax, the duchy’s chief executive, said it should exist to make a positive impact in the communities where it can make the biggest difference. Prince William put the same idea more bluntly, saying the duchy is not a traditional landowner and that he wants it to be more than that, with priorities focused on improving the lives of people who live in the areas it oversees.
The scale of the plan marks the latest stage in a long attempt to give the duchy a more modern purpose. Created in the medieval period as part of feudal land ownership, it still provides a private income of more than £20m a year to the Prince of Wales. Since the Sovereign Grant was introduced in 2012, pressure has grown for greater transparency around royal finances, and that scrutiny has sharpened again after the Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor scandal.
The duchy has also been trying to present itself as a force for social value, with more emphasis on affordable housing and environmental protection. Its new strategy gives greater weight to Bath, Cornwall, Dartmoor, the Isles Of Scilly and Kennington in south London, signalling where it intends to concentrate investment and influence over the next decade.
That shift is likely to be welcomed by those arguing the estate should do more than generate income, but it also exposes the contradiction at the heart of the monarchy’s land holdings: the duchy says it is seeking to serve communities, while critics have long described it as a machine that turns inherited land into private profit. Norman Baker has mocked the arrangement as a “royal fruit machine,” saying Prince William pulls the handle and gets a jackpot every time, and he has argued for “more houses, more tenants, more income.”
The new plan answers one question clearly: the duchy is betting that its future legitimacy depends on proving that its land can produce homes, jobs and cleaner energy, not just rent. What remains to be seen is whether the public will accept that transformation when the money still flows privately to the Prince of Wales.
