Prince William waives rent on lifeboat stations, school fields and village halls

Prince William has stopped imposing rents on lifeboat stations - Chris Jackson/Getty

Prince William’s Duchy of Cornwall estate has waived rental charges worth more than £10,000 a year for the use of lifeboat stations, school playing fields and village halls, it has emerged.

The £1.3 billion property empire, which provides the Prince with a private income of almost £23 million a year, launched a review of the rents it receives from charities and grass-roots community groups following criticism of multimillion-pound deals it struck with public bodies.

Will Bax, the Duchy’s new secretary and keeper of the records, said last month that the Prince wanted to ensure the Duchy operated in a “modern, socially minded way”.

He added: “It would be remiss not to address the media scrutiny the Duchy has experienced this year. We have used these challenges as an opportunity to stop and reflect.”

Mr Bax announced that rents would be waived for grass-roots community tenants, while local charity tenants would receive a 50 per cent discount.

The organisations that will see their rental charges “reduced to nil”, disclosed by The Sunday Times, include the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, which previously paid £600 a year for permission to use the prince’s beaches at Salcombe, Sennen Cove, the Lizard, Rock and St Mary’s in the Isles of Scilly.

Devon County Council will no longer be liable for the £15,000 it paid to operate Princetown fire station over a 50-year period.

The RNLI previously paid £600 a year for permission to use the prince’s beaches - tbradford

The Trinity House maritime charity, which had paid £3,000 over 20 years for the right to operate the Bishop Rock lighthouse in the Isle of Scilly, has had a reprieve, as have the community groups charged thousands of pounds a year to use village halls in Curry Mallet and Newton St Loe, as well as allotments in Bradninch and a community orchard in Newquay which is used to help disadvantaged groups.

Charges worth thousands a year have also been waived for the use of playing fields, rugby pitches and recreation grounds in Princetown, Corston, Clandown near Bath and Stoke-sub-Hamdon in Somerset.

The Duchy will no longer charge £200 a year for the use of a children’s play area in Poundbury, Dorset, demand rental payments from the Scouts, or the £125,000 paid by the Government for the use of the visitor centre and shop at Tintagel Castle, north Cornwall, which fund the castle’s preservation, over a 25-year period.

The disclosure of the Duchy’s rent waivers follows an investigation last November into both the Prince’s Duchy and the King’s Duchy of Lancaster estate, by Channel 4’s Dispatches and The Sunday Times, which found the estates had secured rental agreements worth millions of pounds with the armed forces, the NHS and state schools.

The investigation revealed that the Duchy of Cornwall was set to earn around £600,000 over the lifetime of six different leases agreed with local state schools.

The Duchy is now reviewing those rents, which include £319,000 over 21 years for Devon county council to operate Princetown Community Primary School on Dartmoor, and £60,000 over 25 years for Farrington Gurney Church of England Primary School, near Bath, to use its premises.

However, it will continue to take large taxpayer-funded rents from government departments, among them the Ministry of Defence, which over the past two decades has paid at least £900,000 for the right to moor boats needed to train recruits on the waters surrounding the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, and the Ministry of Justice, which pays £1.5 million a year to use HMP Dartmoor, which now stands empty because of high levels of toxic gas on the site.

The Duchy also charges the Royal Navy £10,000 a year for access to its own oil depot, which is used to fuel the nation’s warships, at Devonport in Plymouth, the UK’s biggest naval base.

The Duchy of Cornwall estate is reviewing its rent for HM Prison Dartmoor - Ben Birchall/PA

The Prince, also known as the Duke of Cornwall, told the Telegraph earlier this year that he wanted the Duchy to be a “positive force for good” that would actively “make people’s lives better”.

Addressing the criticism in June, Mr Bax said: “It would be remiss not to address the media scrutiny the Duchy has experienced this past year.

“We’ve used these challenges as an opportunity to stop and reflect. Both the Duke and I are clear that we want the Duchy to be world class in our approach to supporting people, communities and nature to flourish and to realise that aim, we must operate and communicate in a modern, socially minded way.”

He added: “It’s clear we’ve entered an era of deep change, but we change, not because we disrespect our past, but precisely because we do respect it.

“We are making the most of the opportunity to step back and reflect. Reflect on what society requires of us. Reflect on how we support our people, our communities and our places to thrive.”

The Prince received £22.9 million from the estate last year, down from £23.6 million the previous year. The Duchy declined to reveal how much tax the heir to the throne paid but said it was at the “highest rate”.

Meanwhile, the King’s Duchy of Lancaster has said that it “actively reviews” its own lease agreements on an ongoing basis and will “continue to consider its future position.”

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