Crown leases not for sale

THE CROWN and the Prince of Wales have been granted special exemption from Government proposals for 'right to buy' property reforms.

The reforms, allowing leaseholders the right to buy the freehold of their homes, have so angered the Duke of Westminster that he resigned from the Conservative Party last month. Another big landowner, the Earl Cadogan, said that he would make no further contributions to party funds.

Now, it has emerged that leaseholders living in certain Crown properties - for example, those in and around Regent's Park in London, Windsor Park and Hampton Court - will be refused the right to buy.

Part of the Prince of Wales's Duchy of Cornwall estates in central Dartmoor will also be exempt. Leaseholders on the Isles of Scilly, which are almost wholly owned by the Duchy, will be prevented from buying the freeholds of their property, as will leaseholders bordering other royal parks and palaces.

A spokesman for the Department of the Environment said such properties were 'part of the nation's heritage and history'. He added: 'We want to preserve that and make sure it doesn't go into private hands.'

Landowners such as the Duke of Westminster, however, used exactly the same argument against the Housing and Urban Development Bill - which contains the reforms - affecting their historic estates.

'If the Crown get exemption why not historic estates elsewhere?' said a spokesman for Smith charities, which owns parts of South Kensington, including Onslow Square.

'The Government makes one rule for itself and one for other people,' said Stuart Corbyn, chief executive of the Cadogan estate, which owns Sloane Square and 90 acres of Chelsea. 'There is clearly very little difference between Cadogan Square and the terraces in Regent's Park.'

A spokesman for the Duke of Westminster's Grosvenor estate said: 'We believe there is a strong case for exempting owners of estates which have listed buildings and have benefited from a cohesive management approach over a long period of time.'

The Crown exemption, slipped out by Sir George Young, the housing minister, in a parliamentary written answer in November, has gone unnoticed until now. Its existence is likely to increase the opposition of some peers to the bill when it reaches its committee stage in the House of Lords on Tuesday.