The Buckingham Palace renovation has cost three hundred and sixty-nine million pounds of taxpayer money. It began in 2017 and is expected to complete next year. When the renovation was announced royal aides specifically rejected claims that Charles intended to use it as a monarchy headquarters rather than a residence. Buckingham Palace will remain the official residence of the monarch said a formal statement from Clarence House.
Charles became King in 2022. He and Camilla have remained at Clarence House.
Sources now tell Eden that Their Majesties will never live at the palace. That it will be used for investitures, receptions and banquets but the King and Queen will not sleep there.
Meanwhile William and Kate have moved into Forest Lodge at Windsor and have reportedly no inclination to move into Buckingham Palace when William becomes King either.
So the institution spent three hundred and sixty-nine million pounds of public money renovating a building that neither the current monarch nor the future monarch intends to inhabit.
Nicky Haslam, the interior designer and old Etonian friend of Camilla, told Eden that turning Buckingham Palace into an office is wrong. Period. He says William will not use it either and that it stops the palace being the jewel in the crown. He worries that tourists will not visit if they think it is an office.
The tourists who visit Versailles are not disappointed that Louis XVI no longer sleeps there. The tourists who visit Hampton Court do not require a Windsor to be in residence. The tourists who visit the palaces of Russia, Germany and France where no royal has lived for over a century still come. The argument that a palace requires a resident royal to attract visitors does not survive contact with the history of palace tourism.
But the three hundred and sixty-nine million pound question is not about tourism.
It is about what the institution is actually for.
The monarchy has spent a decade telling the public that it is slimming down, becoming more relevant, demonstrating value for money and modernising its relationship with the country. Simultaneously it has spent three hundred and sixty-nine million pounds of public money renovating a seven hundred and seventy-five room palace that both the current King and the future King have quietly decided they do not want to live in.
The commenter who suggests opening Buckingham Palace as a fully public museum is making the most sensible argument in the entire thread. Open it year round. Open more rooms. Use the space for the kind of programming Charles actually excels at: concerts, exhibitions, interfaith dialogue, environmental summits. The palace could generate significant revenue independently and serve the public in ways that justify its existence.
Instead it will have investitures and banquets.
While Charles remains at Clarence House.
And William stays at Forest Lodge.
And the renovation bill sits at three hundred and sixty-nine million.
Paid by the public.
For a building neither of them will sleep in.
The monarchy is in what Kaiser accurately describes as its who is going to check me era. The funding flows regardless. The accountability is absent. The palace gets renovated. Nobody moves in.
Republic marched to the gates last week with a hundred people.
Charles's approval is at forty-six percent.
And the jewel in the crown has nobody home.