The Queen opens Palace gates - for pounds 8: 400,000 tourists will help fund repairs to Windsor Castle, says David Nicholson-Lord

THE QUEEN yesterday joined the ranks of impoverished aristocrats and populist European monarchies by announcing she is to admit visitors to her principal home. Buckingham Palace will open its doors to tourists for eight weeks in August and September, charging pounds 8 a head. Proceeds will help to pay for the rebuilding of Windsor Castle, badly damaged by fire last November.

The scheme, announced simultaneously by the palace and the Department of National Heritage, was greeted with delight by the tourist industry but with reservations by the Labour Party, which described it as 'highly unsatisfactory' and a humiliating climbdown for Peter Brooke, Secretary of State for National Heritage.

About 400,000 visitors are expected to visit the Palace, which yesterday described its prices - pounds 8 for an adult, pounds 5.50 for the over-60s and pounds 4 for under-17s - as 'very reasonable'. A spokesman said: 'For all the marvellous things that will be seen, the fine treasures from the Royal Collection, pounds 8 will be very reasonable, particularly in the context that the money will be going towards a good cause.'

Among the works of art on show will be three paintings by Rubens, five by Van Dyck, others by Rembrandt and Claude Lorraine, furniture from Versailles, sculpture by Canova and a collection of Sevres porcelain said to be the finest in the world, much of it accumulated by George IV.

The Queen herself will not be on view. For the months chosen she retreats to Balmoral, several hundred miles to the north.

From 1994, the Queen will also begin charging visitors pounds 3 each for entry to the precincts of Windsor Castle, now free. The two measures will raise an estimated 70 per cent of the cost of rebuilding Windsor after the fire, put at pounds 30m- pounds 40m.

According to Lord Airlie, Lord Chamberlain and head of the Royal Household, the costs of rebuilding Windsor will involve no net additional cost to the taxpayer and will not affect the maintenance of other royal palaces.

The decision to recoup the costs of Windsor from tourists rather than the Exchequer was the Queen's idea and 'very much' her initiative, sources said. It comes after the lack of public response to a trust fund started after the fire: only pounds 25,000 has been raised. Royal officials defended the poor response by arguing that a general appeal was never made.

In the Commons, Mr Brooke said that he believed the scheme would be widely welcomed. However, Ann Clwyd, Labour's National Heritage spokesman, said it was unlikely enough revenue would be raised and the taxpayer, not the Queen, would still 'in one way or another' foot the bill.

Mr Brooke had discovered that neither his government colleagues nor the public wanted to pay for the fire, forcing him to announce 'an even greater dog's dinner of a scheme,' she said.

The Palace will open each summer for five years, after which the scheme will be reviewed.

Security at the Palace will be a headache - cameras and bags will not be allowed inside - and the idea is certain to boost proposals to pedestrianise the surrounding area, condemned in an official report last week as a 'national

disgrace'.

Rebuilding Windsor, page 3

(Photograph omitted)