King made more than £1m selling land for leg of HS2 that was scrapped

King Charles’s private property estate has made more than £1m at taxpayers’ expense from the sale of land for projects linked to the leg of HS2 which will no longer be built, the Guardian can reveal.

The Duchy of Lancaster negotiated payments totalling £1,132,400 by selling land for road works near a proposed hub station in Crewe, Cheshire in a deal that has emerged despite the organisation’s assertion that it is “completely self-financing and does not rely on taxpayers’ money”.

The duchy – which has been controlled by reigning monarchs since medieval times and exists to provide them with a private income – acquired a sprawling, 1,400-hectare (3,450-acre) estate set around the Jacobean mansion of Crewe Hall in 1936.

In recent years, some of the land has been sold to make way for new roads and housing developments. It is able to maximise its profits on these deals because it is exempt from most business taxes.

HS2 was supposed to connect Crewe with London in under an hour, as well as delivering high-speed services to Birmingham and Manchester. It was expected to bring an estimated 6.3 million extra passengers to the town by 2036 and boost the local economy by £750m per year.

The Land Registry document says: ‘The transferee has paid the sum of eight hundred thousand pounds plus value added tax.’ Photograph: Land Registry

In preparation, officials planned a series of major upgrades to the area’s infrastructure. Acquiring land from the duchy’s estate was key and at least three plots were sold before the northern phase of the project was shelved in 2023 amid spiralling costs.

In Crewe, the duchy was free to negotiate on price because, unlike other landowners whose property was acquired as part of developments linked to HS2, it is largely exempt from compulsory purchase laws.

The payments were made between 2012 and 2017, when the duchy was controlled by the late Queen Elizabeth II. Its profits increased sharply during her reign, although throughout her lifetime its vast landholdings were kept secret, even from parliament.

Crewe Hall, a Jacobean mansion in Cheshire, was acquired by the Duchy of Lancaster in 1936. In recent years, some of the land surrounding it has been sold. Photograph: Avalon/Construction Photography/Alamy

The king did not have to pay inheritance tax when it passed to him upon her death in 2022, as the duchy enjoys special status as a crown body. It is also exempt from corporation tax and capital gains tax.

Last year, it generated an income of £26.5m. It is understood that the king voluntarily paid some income tax on this dividend, but he is not obliged to disclose how much.

In July, the duchy announced it would “actively review” its policies after it was criticised for making money from public bodies and charities.

It came after a joint investigation by Channel 4 Dispatches and the Sunday Times uncovered some of the business deals it had made with taxpayer-funded organisations. This included a 15-year agreement with an NHS trust, worth £11.4m. The trust parks its ambulances in a warehouse built on duchy land in south London.

More details of its past dealings with taxpayer-funded organisations are still emerging.

HS2 – first mooted by Labour in 2009 – was formally announced by the coalition government in January 2012. Crewe immediately emerged as the frontrunner to host a hub station in the north-west, although officials said a section of the A500 road near the town would have to be realigned to accommodate a rail bridge.

Land Registry document quotes: ‘THE QUEEN’S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY in the right of Her Duchy of Lancaster…CHESHIRE EAST BOROUGH COUNCIL’ Photograph: Land Registry

The local authority, Cheshire East council, also planned to work with central government to turn a section of the A500 into a dual carriageway in order to improve access to the station from the M6 motorway. It said the A500 was “integral to achieving the full economic potential of HS2”.

Land Registry documents show that the transport department bought several plots of land close to the A500 in 2012, when these plans were being drawn up.

It paid £318,000 for a slice of duchy land next to the section of the road the local authority hoped to upgrade and later transferred ownership to the council.

Plans for a dual carriageway were halted when it was announced that HS2 would terminate in Birmingham.

The local authority also built a major road in the town to provide “an alternative route to Crewe station” incorporating a small part of the duchy estate. It paid £800,000 to acquire the relevant land in 2014 – two years earlier it had used plans for the road in its pitch to central government for an HS2 hub in the town.

The new road was opened in 2015 and named after local man David Whitby, one of the drivers of the train that was hijacked during the Great Train Robbery in 1963.

At its opening, Edward Timpson, then the MP for Crewe and Nantwich, said that Crewe now had a “transport network which is fit for purpose and really looking forward, with HS2 on the horizon”.

In 2018, the council also carried out work to upgrade a roundabout at Crewe Green, a short drive from the station, widening junctions so traffic could merge from different directions. It included new footways and cycle paths.

A local authority document said one objective of these upgrades was to deliver “network resilience in the era prior to the arrival of the HS2 hub”. The previous year, it paid £14,400 for duchy land it needed to build on.

Rishi Sunak announced in 2023 that the northern phase of HS2 would be scrapped after costs had ballooned. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Former prime minister Rishi Sunak was accused of the biggest infrastructure climbdown in a generation when he announced at the 2023 Conservative party conference that the northern phase of HS2 would be scrapped after costs had ballooned to about £71bn.

Cheshire East council said the cancellation of HS2 was a “devastating blow” which left it on the verge of bankruptcy. It recently accepted a funding package from central government of £25.3m.

A spokesperson for the Duchy of Lancaster said: “As with any landowner, the acquisition and disposal of property assets forms part of routine activities.

“We wouldn’t comment on individual transactions, but any such payments would be invested back into the Duchy estate rather than as distributable income to the Monarch.

“The Duchy of Lancaster estate is not incorporated and therefore not subject to corporation tax. However, The king voluntarily pays income tax on income from the Duchy of Lancaster.

“A decision by the Duchy Council on charity rents has been reached and any changes will be announced in due course.”