Queen misses out on funding

Earlier this year we reported that the government were considering giving The Queen additional funding to repair the royal palaces. See Queen gets money to fix crumbling palaces for more information.

 

It now appears that this rumour was not true and The Queen has lost out to the Olympics, which require £9.3 billion of funding. Even though funding for the maintenance of palaces has fallen 70 per cent in real terms since 1990, the government refuses to add any additional monies to make up for a backlog of maintenance.

 

Sir Alan Reid, Keeper of the Privy Purse, has revealed they estimate they will need $32 million between now and 2018 to get the maintenance back on track. Unfortunately, since we reported last year’s maintenance backlog, virtually nothing has been done because the £5 million The Queen receives for palace maintenance is simply not enough to go around.

 

This year it has been revealed the queen is very concerned about the lack of maintenance of the palace state rooms, many of which have not been redecorated since the beginning of her reign in 1952. On this basis, it is a credit to the royal household that the rooms are in as good a condition as they are. There is no question that a large project needs to be started to regild the whole of the state apartments. It is rather depressing to walk around Buckingham palace looking at this magnificent design with such old gilding.

 

The electrical wiring in the palace has not been renewed since 1948, and all the palaces are lined with asbestos which needs to be removed.

 

Just replacing the roofs at Buckingham palace and Windsor Castle is estimated that $16 million.

For more information on the story see: Even the Queen is feeling the crunch

The virtual tour of Buckingham Palace from palacevirtualtours.com allows you to explore the rooms and artwork discussed in this article.   An evaluation version of the tour is available for free download.