Prince William wants to build social housing on his private estate.
The 40-year-old royal is on a mission to “end homelessness” and confirmed he is willing to have affordable properties built on the 130,000 acres of land he owns between Cornwall and Kent as part of the Duchy of Cornwall.
Asked if there are duchy plans for affordable housing, he told the Sunday Times newspaper in a rare interview: “There is. Absolutely. Social housing. You’ll see that when it’s ready. I’m no policy expert, but I push it where I can.”
It is believed William will “start small” and scale up his plans if they prove to be viable but the prince stressed “the key thing is making this sustainable” when it comes to his vision.
He said: “It’s all very well doing big gestures, but there’s no point if . . . there’s no future to it.
“(I am determined to) make a difference . . . that doesn’t set people up that are homeless for another fall.
“They think they’ve got hope and then you take it away from them, which so many of these people have experienced.”
William first visited a homeless shelter with his mother, the late Princess Diana, when he was just 11 years old and his first royal patronage in 2005 was for homeless charity Centrepoint.
And the prince admitted it is a subject he frequently raises with his and wife Catherine, Princess of Wales’ three children, and he hopes to take Princes George and Louis, nine and five, and Princess Charlotte, eight, along to one of his visits in the near future.
He said: “When I left this morning, one of the things I was thinking was, ‘When is the right time to bring George or Charlotte or Louis to a homeless organisation?’
“I think when I can balance it with their schooling, they will definitely be exposed to it. On the school run, we talk about what we see. When we were in London, driving backwards and forwards, we regularly used to see people sitting outside supermarkets and we’d talk about it.
“I’d say to the children, ‘Why are they there? What’s going on?’ I think it’s in all our interests, it’s the right thing to do, to expose the children, at the right stage, in the right dialogue, so they have an understanding.
“They [will] grow up knowing that actually, do you know what, some of us are very fortunate, some of us need a little bit of a helping hand, some of us need to do a bit more where we can to help others improve their lives.”
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