Is this thread really about the £2.4 million we've just paid to renovate prince harry and meghans place?
I'm not anti-Monarchy, and I supported the Queens efforts years ago to cut down on the royal budget by cutting expenses to the lesser royals. So in that vein when does Harry move in to that group too? Since William and Kate had their 3 children then for all intents and purposes Harry's royal profile will slowly fade in to the background as the 3 children become adults. He should have paid it from his own money, especially when the US tax system breathing down their necks threatening to open the royal books themselves. Harry and Meghan should have been separating their accounts by now.
I think people rightfully have an issue paying this £2.4 million out.
You mean the 2.4 million spent to maintain valuable properties? (they don't just replace things like structural timbers because someone is moving in and they don't like the old wood).
The work that the crown estate paid for on those properties is basically the equivalent to what your council would pay if work was needed on properties it owned and was about to be let out- the only difference being that because the properties in question were listed and fairly high end they had to do the work in a style that matched, rather than getting Bob's Builders in to use stuff from Wickes and Homebase.
From what I've read it sounded like the property was in serious need of refurbishment/structural work before anyone could use it again, and they took the chance to also restore them to something closer to the original style at the same time as modernising the utilities.
Which means that the 2.4 million would have been spent regardless of who was going to use the property, as it's either spend the money to keep it in good shape or let it fall down/get worse and cost more to fix up in the future (which is part of the reason things like various of the palaces and the HOP are costing so much*).
From my understanding the couple paid for any works above that standard restoration themselves, which is basically what you would get if someone was about to move into any luxury apartments or properties as a long term rental and the property was in the process of major works and the landlord was open to the customisation.
*IIRC the government has dithered over the cost of repairs and routine maintainance to the houses of parliament for so long that the damage has got considerably worse as things like leaks that at one point could have been fixed with just a new roof section have caused damage to the underlying structure, or things like damaged plasterwork has allowed water ingress resulting in additional damage.