Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
BUCKINGHAM PALACE NEEDS a taxpayer-funded face-lift if it’s to remain fit for the queen.
The London home of Queen Elizabeth II hasn’t been upgraded since just after World War II, and needs urgent infrastructure work to fix plumbing, electrical cables and heating, palace officials said yesterday.
The work will cost some £369 million (€430 million) over ten years and is considered critical to safeguarding the building from fire or flood damage. If the work goes as planned, the palace won’t need another renovation until 2067, when Prince William would be 85, or five years younger than the current monarch.
A petition calling on the royal family to pay for the refurbishments themselves has already amassed over 25,000 signatures.
Palace officials acknowledge that the sum is vast, but hope the public will accept the expenditure for a building that represents a nation.
“We take the responsibility that comes with receiving these public funds extremely seriously indeed,” said Tony Johnstone-Burt, the official in charge of administering the royal family’s affairs.
Equally, we are convinced that by making this investment in Buckingham Palace now we can avert a much more costly and potentially catastrophic building failure in the years to come.
The project will be paid for through a temporary increase in the Sovereign Grant, a percentage of the profits from the Crown Estate.
The cost of the refurbishing prompted dissent from the anti-royal campaign group, Republic.
“Royal attitude always the same: it’s theirs to use and ours to pay for,” the group said on its Twitter feed. “Time we took the palace back and turned it into world class museum.”
The scale of the project is enormous — though it deals with the parts of the palace the public would not see in a building that boasts 775 rooms including 78 bathrooms and 19 state rooms. Some 30,000 square metrexs of floorboards, for example, will need to be lifted to fix cabling.
In a nod to the environmentally minded Prince Charles, solar panels will be installed.
The queen will be able to remain at home during the works, though she will have to move to another part of the palace when her private apartments are renovated.
The project envisions the improvement of visitor facilities and improved public access, making it more accessible for the disabled, for example.
Tourist attraction
The palace is one of Britain’s most recognisable buildings, the backdrop for national occasions, royal balcony kisses and post-war victory celebrations. Tourists flock to its gates to watch the Changing of the Guard, while the facade that faces the flag-draped Mall features in the snapshots of millions.
More than half a million people visit during its summer opening, together with some 90,000 annually that attend state receptions, garden parties and official events.
“Tourists are drawn to this country because of our culture, heritage and royal legacy, and when they visit they spend billions of pounds and support thousands of jobs,” said David Gauke, the chief secretary to the Treasury.
We must ensure that the special architectural and historic natures of some of our greatest buildings are protected for future generations.
The architect John Nash developed the building into a palace between the 1825 and 1840. Queen Victoria added the balcony and built a wing to extend accommodation and entertaining.
Bombed during World War II, restoration work began there in 1950. At the initiative of the Duke of Edinburgh, a new public gallery to display works from the Royal Collection was created at the site of the chapel bombed in the war.
Britain’s royal family need not look far into the past to see the devastating consequences that fire can have on structures that are hundreds of years old. A spotlight left too close to a curtain touched off a fire that raged for hours at Windsor Castle in 1992, a year the queen described as her “annus horribilis.” Windsor is the Queen’s favorite palace, the place she’s said to regard as her personal home.
Similar damage to a single wing at Buckingham Palace would cost an estimated 250 million pounds.
Underlining the desperate state of things, palace officials used images of Clandon Park, a Palladian mansion recently gutted by fire, and the Royal Clarence Hotel, a landmark in the city of Exeter that was destroyed, to underline why the work must take place now.
The most critical work on Buckingham Palace is set to begin in April 2017.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
London and Paris are just as complicit keeping Putin in power. They should freeze these billionaire oligarchs bank accounts and deport them and their faimilies back to Russia. English football needs to get their money from less dubious sources, or every football fan has a hand in keeping navalny in prison
@Clurichaun: absolutely…… But its Convenient to look the other way. The Russians have used nuclear weapon and biological weapon in the UK. But with brexit they will want Russian money. So the decent Russians are on their own.
@Clurichaun: Did you see the beating the French police were giving protesters yesterday? People on the ground were being birched with big sticks, it’s difficult to be critical when police in Paris & Catalonia are doing exactly the same.
@Joe Thorpe: hardly the same thing. The people of Russia want freedom from generations of corruption and political assassinations. The geniuses in France won’t follow basic public health advice while thousands die in hospitals
@Joe Thorpe: Well that’s yellow vest nut jobs. We have then here too G.O.D I’d buy the French police a beer if what you said is true.
If this happened in the USA the condemnation and screams would be heard from across the Atlantic. I always find it amazing how the Russians and Chinese generally get a free pass from The Western Media. Very strange.
@Crispy Brown: nail on the head mate, why no putin hatred here in Ireland or condemnation, irish people are so manipulated in their thoughts by the mainstream media its hilarious, no putin bashers no?, most Irish people probably don’t even know who he is, just thousands of people on here for months saying how much better off the world is now without Donald trump, yer a joke,
@Crispy Brown: day do not speakit de English
@Hugo Bugo: got one thing right BETTER OFF WITHOUT THE TWITTERING TWIT
One cold-war era trained Heavy, and his favourite acquired sidemen, will be incapable of halting the march of a nation towards true democracy and freedom.
And Navalny is the Leader to see this through, given his past independence from outdated and corrupt Sovereign Governance machine ruling that eleven time-zoned Country for over three decades.
English Electorate, please observe closely and learn for fear of slippage into similar undemocratic ways by your political masters.
@Rory J Leonard: maybe you should check Navalny’s track record before you start putting any hopes in him. Another ‘pro democracy’ merchant with questionable values to say the least. I am not a supporter of Putin either
@alan: track record? Post. But not from Pro kremlin government controlled media
Like him or hate him Russia needs a strong leader like Putin. If Russia was to fall into the hands of anarchists there be dire consequences for the rest of the world.
@Michael Maher: or into US stooges like Yeltsin. A man who brought the country to its knees.
@Eugene Norman: Correct the man was a drunk.
@Eugene Norman: The blame for Putin lies squarely on US shoulders and the West in general. They put Yeltsin in power and enabled oligarchs by privatising public companies so they could do easier business deals. They went back on their promise to Gorbachev not to bring any more countries into Nato in return for a peaceful German reunification. Gorbachev knew exactly how Nato expansion into satellite countries would be used to fuel paranoia in Russia and leverage political opportunities.They even helped write the Russian constitution to suit their own ends. They have destroyed Ukraine through interfering in its economic and political affairs and afforded Putin the opportunity to annex Crimea without breaking sweat. The West has no moral high ground when it comes to Putin. They are reaping what they sowed.
@Michael Maher: It has fallen into the hands of a KGB agent (Putin) and a want to be dictator (Trump)
Apparently no one believed them when they said a Russian oligarch owned the palace with a no fly zone and 2km avoidance zone on the black sea.
Before you jump to conclusions make sure you look into navalny, a far right nationalist should not be supported blindly because you have been told putin is bad doesn’t mean anti-putin is better
Bring back the red flag
have your say