The Prince of Wales has announced plans to build 24 homes to provide temporary accommodation for local people experiencing homelessness on Duchy of Cornwall land in the south-west of England.
Working with the Cornish homelessness charity St Petrocs, the project will provide the homes in Nansledan, a suburb of Newquay, with “wraparound support” including training and job opportunities.
The development of “high-quality temporary accommodation that feels like home” is due to begin in September and the first homes are expected to be completed in autumn next year, according to a statement from the estate.
Last year the prince’s foundation announced that it would provide £3m to fund the Homewards project, which emulates one run in Finland and aims to help homeless people into permanent accommodation, regardless of their circumstances.
The Duchy also said it planned to create a private rented scheme for Nansledan for people on lower incomes, providing longer-term tenancies and transparent rent increases.
The estate has also committed to building more than 400 social rented homes and a further 475 affordable dwellings on its new development of South East Faversham in Kent.
But the move was dismissed as “more spin than substance” by anti-monarchy campaigners. Graham Smith, the chief executive of Republic, said the UK would spend at least £3.4bn on the monarchy over the next decade. “That’s money that could be invested in homes for those who most need them, instead of two dozen palatial homes for one family,” he said.
“The public are well aware of the housing crisis because, unlike William, we are all dealing with the consequences of it. For William to trumpet this very limited scheme as a response to that crisis is nonsense.”
The Duchy of Cornwall estate – which stretches 52,600 hectares (130,000 acres) from Cornwall to Kent – passed to William in 2022, when Prince Charles acceded to the throne. The portfolio of land, property and investments, valued at more than £1bn, provides a sizeable income for the future monarch; it paid his father an income of £21m for the year ending 31 March 2022, according to the duchy’s annual accounts.
Homelessness is a longstanding concern for the Prince of Wales, who became a patron of the homelessness charity Centrepoint in 2004 and is also a patron of the Passage, which he first visited as a child with his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales.
The Duchy of Cornwall estate director, Ben Murphy, said the houses would help people “rebuild their lives” and said William was “determined to ensure that we continue to be part of the solution when it comes to the housing crisis”.
He added: “The shortage of social rent and private rented properties is widely considered to be the main cause of increasing homelessness across the country, which is why we are proud to launch this project alongside ambitious plans to unlock more affordable and attainable homes across our estate.”
Since the Conservatives came into power in 2010, England has seen a 63% cut in funding for affordable housing, with only 9,561 social homes delivered in England in 2022-23 compared with 40,000 a decade earlier.
According to the charity Shelter, there are now 1.4 million fewer households in social housing than there were in 1980, but waiting lists are growing. There were 1.29 million households on local authority waiting lists in England in 2023, an increase of 73,000 (6%) compared with 31 March 2022 and the highest number of households on the waiting list since 2014.
Meanwhile, rent in the private sector has risen rapidly; in January, average private rents in Great Britain climbed to record highs. According to the estate agent Hamptons, the total rent bill in Britain has doubled since 2010, while high house prices and mortgage costs have made it harder for younger adults to buy a home.
There is record homelessness in England and councils and support agencies are under huge pressure to address rough sleeping and insecure housing. More than 100,000 households in England, including more than 125,000 children, are living in temporary accommodation, the highest figure in 20 years.
Polly Neate, the chief executive of Shelter, welcomed the project. “To truly end homelessness, we need all political parties to follow the prince’s lead and commit to building 90,000 social homes per year, so that there is a home for everyone who needs one,” she said.
