Jacqueline
Courtier
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Queen sells land at Kensington palace
First sale of royal grounds for 300 years
David Hencke, Westminster correspondent
Monday December 16, 2002
The Guardian
The Queen is to get a windfall of up to £100,000 from the first sale of land by a royal palace for 300 years. A deal is being brokered between the government, on behalf of the royal household, and the owners of the Royal Garden hotel in London over the sale of a plot of land owned by Kensington Palace.
Hitherto it had been illegal for any of the grounds of the royal homes - Kensington Palace, Buckingham Palace, St James's Palace, and Windsor Castle - to be sold. In 1702 parliament forbade William of Orange to sell any of the palace land, in order to stop him joining in the property speculation rife at the time.
A wheeze has been devised by the parliamentary agents Winckworth Sherwood to get round the ban. The agents, who draft bills and promote them through parliament, have had passed a private act giving the owner of the Royal Garden hotel, the Imperial Tobacco pension fund, dispensation to buy the land.
The procedure could be copied in future and has implications for development of royal palaces at a time when the royal household is looking at rationalising its residences; Kensington Palace is largely empty, and once vacated by its last royal tenants, including Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, the building could be redeveloped.
Plans to lease some of the empty flats to selected, security-cleared tenants, such as foreign ambassadors or military figures, have foundered because of laws preventing any property in the palaces being leased for longer than 31 years.
The new legislation, under the unwieldy title of Land at Palace Avenue, Kensington (Acquisition of Freehold) Act, got through parliament virtually without debate in June. It gets round the 31-year lease by allowing Imperial Tobaccoto to start negotiating to buy a parcel of the most valuable estate in the capital.
The back of the hotel (designed by Richard Seifert, who built Centre Point) straddles the palace land. A 31-year lease agreed in 1987 cost £5,000, plus a ground rent of £200 a year, which will soon rise to £300.
The pension fund, through its property advisers, DTZ, opened negotiations with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport within days of the act getting the royal assent. It is understood that an opening bid of £25,000 for the land, six yards by 60 yards, was turned down by the department; it is reported to want a six figure sum more in line with land prices in Kensington.
A spokesman for the department said yesterday: "The money raised is expected to go to the royal household."
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/monarchy/story/0...,860766,00.html
First sale of royal grounds for 300 years
David Hencke, Westminster correspondent
Monday December 16, 2002
The Guardian
The Queen is to get a windfall of up to £100,000 from the first sale of land by a royal palace for 300 years. A deal is being brokered between the government, on behalf of the royal household, and the owners of the Royal Garden hotel in London over the sale of a plot of land owned by Kensington Palace.
Hitherto it had been illegal for any of the grounds of the royal homes - Kensington Palace, Buckingham Palace, St James's Palace, and Windsor Castle - to be sold. In 1702 parliament forbade William of Orange to sell any of the palace land, in order to stop him joining in the property speculation rife at the time.
A wheeze has been devised by the parliamentary agents Winckworth Sherwood to get round the ban. The agents, who draft bills and promote them through parliament, have had passed a private act giving the owner of the Royal Garden hotel, the Imperial Tobacco pension fund, dispensation to buy the land.
The procedure could be copied in future and has implications for development of royal palaces at a time when the royal household is looking at rationalising its residences; Kensington Palace is largely empty, and once vacated by its last royal tenants, including Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, the building could be redeveloped.
Plans to lease some of the empty flats to selected, security-cleared tenants, such as foreign ambassadors or military figures, have foundered because of laws preventing any property in the palaces being leased for longer than 31 years.
The new legislation, under the unwieldy title of Land at Palace Avenue, Kensington (Acquisition of Freehold) Act, got through parliament virtually without debate in June. It gets round the 31-year lease by allowing Imperial Tobaccoto to start negotiating to buy a parcel of the most valuable estate in the capital.
The back of the hotel (designed by Richard Seifert, who built Centre Point) straddles the palace land. A 31-year lease agreed in 1987 cost £5,000, plus a ground rent of £200 a year, which will soon rise to £300.
The pension fund, through its property advisers, DTZ, opened negotiations with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport within days of the act getting the royal assent. It is understood that an opening bid of £25,000 for the land, six yards by 60 yards, was turned down by the department; it is reported to want a six figure sum more in line with land prices in Kensington.
A spokesman for the department said yesterday: "The money raised is expected to go to the royal household."
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/monarchy/story/0...,860766,00.html