Britain’s best-known building is being rewired and replumbed from top to bottom, which has moved the pageantry elsewhere and kept the bill in the news
Buckingham Palace Renovation: Where the State Visits Went and Who Pays for the Wiring
I walk past Buckingham Palace several times a week. It is on my way to most things. Tourists stand at the railings photographing a building that looks, from the front, exactly as it always has. What they cannot see is that large parts of the inside are a building site.
This has practical consequences for the ceremonial life of the nation. As a royal newsletter noted last year, Buckingham Palace is undergoing renovations, so there will be no more state visits in London for the next couple of years.
What Is Being Done
The work is called the reservicing programme. It was approved in 2016 and began the following year, with a budget of 369 million pounds over ten years. The purpose is not decoration. It is the replacement of the building’s essential systems: electrical wiring, plumbing, heating and boilers, much of which dated from the 1950s.
The official case was blunt. Without the work, there was a serious risk of fire or flood damage to the palace and to the works of art it holds. Miles of cable and pipe had to be replaced. The job has been done wing by wing so that the palace could continue to function.
Why State Visits Moved
A state visit is the grandest form of hospitality the country offers a foreign leader. Traditionally it involves a carriage procession down the Mall, a guard of honour, and a banquet in the palace ballroom for about 170 guests.
With the state rooms affected by the works, that has not been possible in the usual way. Recent incoming visits have been hosted at Windsor Castle. Windsor is a fine setting, arguably a more beautiful one, with a banqueting hall long enough for a single table of 160. But it is not the capital, and the procession through London, with the flags along the Mall, has been missed.
The Money
Now to the part that makes people cross. The reservicing is funded from the Sovereign Grant, the annual payment from the Treasury that covers the official costs of the monarchy. The grant is calculated as a percentage of the profits of the Crown Estate, a property portfolio that belongs to the Crown but whose income goes to the public purse.
To pay for the palace works, the percentage was temporarily raised. In recent years, profits of the Crown Estate have risen sharply because of income from offshore wind farm leases, which pushed the grant up considerably. The formula has since been adjusted downward, but the sums remain large and the timing, during a period when public services are under strain, has been uncomfortable.
The Arguments
Those who object say that a very wealthy family should contribute more to the upkeep of its own residence, and that hundreds of millions of pounds of public money on a palace sits badly with closed libraries and waiting lists.
Those who defend the spending say that Buckingham Palace is not private property. It is held by the sovereign in right of the Crown and cannot be sold. It is a working building where the head of state carries out public duties, a national monument and a major tourist attraction. Letting it deteriorate would cost more in the end, and a fire of the kind that damaged Windsor Castle in 1992 would be a catastrophe.
Both points have force. I would add one of my own. The British are bad at maintenance. We prefer to let things decay and then express astonishment at the bill. The Palace of Westminster, across the park, is in far worse condition and its restoration has been argued over for a decade without a start. Whatever one thinks of the palace project, it was at least begun.
The King’s Own Plans
There has been persistent reporting that the King does not intend to live in Buckingham Palace as his mother did, preferring Clarence House nearby, and that he favours opening more of the palace to the public for more of the year. A broadcaster’s royal page this week carried a headline that a former royal aide was unsurprised by the King’s decision on Buckingham Palace. I have not seen the details and will not guess at them.
If the palace does become more of a public building and less of a home, that would be a significant change, and to my mind a sensible one. A house of 775 rooms is a peculiar thing for two people to live in. As a place of state business and public access, it makes more sense.
When It Ends
The programme was scheduled to complete in 2027. Large construction projects in old buildings have a habit of overrunning, and I would not bet a month’s rent on the date. When it is finished, the state visits will presumably return to the Mall, the ballroom will be back in use, and the pipes will be good for another half century.
The View From the Railings
None of this is visible to the people outside with their cameras. They see the balcony and the flag and the guardsmen. The dust sheets are within. I rather like that. It is the monarchy in miniature: a calm facade, and behind it a great deal of expensive work to keep everything from falling down.
For a Smile
Builders in a palace are a comic premise in themselves. The London Prat takes it up in its UK satirical news on palace renovations and British satirical news about scaffolding. My running commentary on the Crown is there as well. Bohiney Magazine covers the story from the States.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
