Duchy of Lancaster’s illegal waste dump..

[CurlewKate]

https://www.channel4.com/news/uks-worst-illegal-waste-dump-is-on-site-belonging-to-private-estate-of-king-but not our fault, Guv.

And can I just add here... if they did something out-the-ordinary here, like this, I would be in the queue to say... well done.
And it would soften my attitude to the Monarchy a tad.

They should pay up from their huge coffers, for waste clearance on their own land. No complexity about it.

yes It would be a good PR stunt if he paid out of Royal estate money to clean it up
he could make a documentary out of it

@RainbowBagels "I cant see what the difference is between a Royalist and a Constitutional Monarchist if one feels they can never do any wrong. "

In my case I don't believe "they" ( if you mean the RF ) never do anything wrong. I would like this waste dump thing examined . I would like other financial things examined. I won't even go into what I think of PA. I do support a constitutional monarchy , but be clear on this , I think they need proper scrutiny in many ways , and they need to be much more financially transparent. & I think that needs to start sooner rather than later and be shown to start.

I'm not sure what the definition of a Royalist actually is , other than a deckchair wielding flag waving uncritical person - just one way of looking at it , so I'm just giving you my opinion.

I would hope it is. But i doubt the King turns up personally. As the link I gave above shows, the King is not involved in the day to day administration. If i was asking questions about this I'd direct them to whoever is currently Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, not the King.

We have evidence that the current rules governing the Royal Duchies demand that they charge a market rent to everyone regardless of who they are. I'd like to see that changed and charities and national organisations like the NHS being charged reduced rents. I'd put that on the list of things to be tackled by an overhaul of Royal and crown estate finances.

The Chief Executive takes the ultimate responsibility…

Did I say anywhere in my post that I don't believe the royals should be held to account?

I am on record, many times over many threads, saying that the Royal finances, including the Crown Estate and the Royal Duchies, need clarity and reform.

I don't believe it helps the cause of reform (small r not the party!) to be unclear about things we do know and where we do know responsibility lies. As far as I understand it, the monarch benefits from the Duchy of Lancaster but responsibility for the administration of the estate lies in the hands of a government appointed official who usually sits in the cabinet (I'd change that as well and make it an apolitical post). If Charles knew about this dump and directed people to ignore it then I'll blame him, until then I'd rather put pressure on the people who do have the power directly.

That’s typical of the grifting royal family. They get loads of money from the Duchies but want to pass any problems onto taxpayers. Their greed is astonishing. Time to get rid of the lot of them.

Yes, he let the billions of windfarm in the sea dosh be made over to the public, he made sure we knew about that!

I thought that was the Crown Estate - i.e. not controlled by the Royal Family. Have I got confused?

No, he would be better spending a tiny part of his huge inherited fortune to get the site cleaned already.

After that we might take him more seriously as an environmentalist

Agree, with one reservation: government bodies such as the NHS, civil service etc also have fiscal rules such as market rents. Grass-roots charities, definitely; multi-million pound organisations, perhaps not.

You are correct, I didn't say Duchy profits!
King Charles directed that profits from a £1billion a year Crown Estate profits be used for the "wider public good" rather than increasing the Sovereign Grant. The 2023 move aimed to reduce the monarchy's funding from the windfall and instead support public spending during the cost-of-living crisis, directing the extra funds to the Treasury. Given that the SG is a %, he would have benefited if he had not done this.

Good PR for Charles for sure, plenty of press releases on it

Who owns the other 70% of the dump?

In fairness there'll be more to this than the bare headlines, but even if there weren't any complexities you can guarantee some would be created to protect Charles

All most will remember in the end is that once again he expected "someone else" to pay, and it's hardly good for the image- or it wouldn't be if he cared in the least

In France (a republic, of course) “ownerless property” becomes the property of the local municipal authority (communes), but they have the right to renounce it if it will be onerous. It then passes up to the next tier of local government, (départements), but they too have the right to renounce their rights. It then gets passed to the regional environmental agency, or to the State. So if this situation arose in France, exactly the same thing would happen: it would become an issue for central government because the lower tiers would pass it on.

These “ancient laws”are actually pretty commonly applied in legal system worldwide. In part because there is a public policy objective here to avoid the kind of problem illustrated here: an organised criminal undertaking buys a piece of cheap land using a limited liability company, use it for a criminal enterprise, dissolve the company and walk away entirely secure in the knowledge that the costs of dealing with it would be someone else’s problem.

People who seize on Charles as the baddie here are looking through a very selective lens! This super-dump didn’t appear overnight, for example. How come no action has been taken previously? There was a toxic fire there in July last year - I haven’t seen any headlines asking why nothing happened then (the local MP described it as a “shocking state failure” at the time). And where are the headlines about whoever owns the other 70% of the land who is presumably in exactly the same position as the Duchy?

Clearly there are several angles here if you are looking for a story, depending on what drum you like to beat.

@Serenster

That’s a lot of words to say precisely nothing .
So what if a republic has ancient laws? Most countries do.

What France doesnt have is a family of grifters who hide behind these ancient arrangements in order to set themselves above the law ,while exploiting national assets in order to enrich themselves all while claiming they are ‘dedicated’ and ‘dutiful’

So what if a republic has ancient laws? Most countries do.

Agreed. So why is it being applied as a pejorative here?

Until we have to know who owns the other 70% it's a bit of a pointless discussion as there is little point Charles cleaning up his 30% - if 70% is going to remain.

The council owe the other part and have started to clear it up.
To the poster asking why there have been no ‘headlines’ about it, local people have complained every single day. It’s not their fault the media weren’t interested like they were about the Oxford dump. A lot of people in Wigan were upset that Oxford got cleared up by the EA pretty quickly but they were ignored

I believe the Oxford waste dump was cleared more quickly because it was next to a major road and was obviously a safety issue

The Wigan one is more middle of nowhere. That doesn't help the poor people who have to put up with this... apparently there's been a terrible rat problem apart from the smell

I would have thought it was glaringly obvious.

You describe the state in the republic ( and in many monarchies but not in the medieval larping UK) dealing with unclaimed land . Perfectly normal .

Here Charles and William cite said ancient proclamations in order to enrich themselves - by charging state assets , by charging the armed forces and by not paying tax due . The state sees nothing but a bill .
Do you grasp the difference now?

We have evidence that the current rules governing the Royal Duchies demand that they charge a market rent to everyone regardless of who they are.

Well we know W has managed to waive a rather ungenerous total of £10k for grassroots organisations and we know he apparently suggested (how seriously I don't know) waiving further rents for tenants but was conveniently discouraged in the venture by a sea of 'sweaty faces' round the table so I'm not sure this is an insurmountable obstacle.

In any case there's nothing stopping the royal recipients donating any of their income as they see fit.

In the UK it is so fucking hideously difficult to get rid of waste. Not only waste, but stuff that can be reused as well is simply hard to get to an appropriate recipient. Councils and govt are so short sighted. Our tip is closed for 3 days every week. They want bookings made. They want you to pay to dump certain kinds of rubbish. The bin men come every 3 weeks. No wonder there is illegal waste all over the place.

The poor old fucking king. He’s a cancer patient who’s nearly 80.

Britain is a fucking shithole and our lack of services creates a bigger and more expensive problem than providing services in the first place. Absolute shit show, embarrassing. The 3rd world would be ashamed at much of the shit that goes on in the UK.

The Oxford dump hasn’t been cleared. Work is due to start in February.

The reason for urgency (despite the response being distinctly lackadaisical) is that the site is alongside a tributary of the River Cherwell which is itself a tributary of the Thames and there is great risk of toxic chemicals leaching into the river system. If they haven’t done so already with all the rain in recent months.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c205gger3dgo.amp