THE royal family are facing more questions about their multi-million pound cash cow property hoardings with “Ditch the Dutchies” billboards appearing across the UK.
The billboard campaign from anti-monarchy group Republic launched earlier this month will see advertisements posted to highlight how King Charles and Prince William’s estates the Duchy of Lancaster and Cornwall are really owned publicly while providing income to royalty.
The billboards have been appearing across the UK this week in Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Tower Hamlets in London and Southampton calling for an “end to the royal scam”.
A report out earlier this year showed that the duchies are public property, not privately owned by the royals. Republic say the same is true of Windsor Great Park, where Prince William and others have private homes.
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It set out how the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall provide annual incomes to the King and his eldest son of £27 million and £23m respectively.
Graham Smith, CEO of Republic, said: “The duchies are public property, yet we continue to allow William and Charles to take the profits as private untaxed income every year.
“More than £50m a year is paid to William and Charles from the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall. That’s money that could be spent on public services and local communities.
A billboard displayed in Rotherhithe Old Road, London (Image: Republic)
“The expansion of this billboard campaign is tackling the issue of royal exploitation head on.
“The royals can’t keep dodging the fact that Duchy land is our land.”
Republic is calling on the duchies to be rolled into a new National Estate, along with Crown Estate land, with the purpose of funding public services and local communities.
Republic’s report argues that the UK Government seeks to obscure the reality of the public’s ownership of the duchies, saying instead that the properties – around 70,000 hectares combined, roughly equivalent to Glasgow, Liverpool and Nottingham put together – are held “in trust”.
The billboards say: “You own this land. They take the profits”.
It comes after Republic announced plans to launch a private prosecution of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source uk.news.yahoo.com ’
