Selling the silver
This is slightly old news but I don't think that David Milliband should be allowed to sell 1 Carlton Gardens. The historic residences given to Ministers are part of our heritage. Mr Milliband owns a house in London where he prefers to live instead which is fine but an insufficient reason to merit selling it, particularly as there'll be a new Foreign Secretary next year or the year after who may be very glad to have it or at least be more imaginative about possible uses for such a beautiful building.
posted by Whispering Walls at 10:30 am
7 Comments:
WW, I am inclined to agree with you here on this as the Govt has regularly stripped assets and sold them on in order to make a quick buck. However the residence has not been used for some time by the Foreign Sec and therefore it needs to find a new role whilst still being of use to the state. How about this for a radical idea …
MPs with fiefdoms outside London no longer have second homes. Instead they are given accommodation in something akin to ‘halls of residence’ but to a standard which will still allow them to host guests and conduct their parliamentary business (of course they do have offices in portcullis house etc!!!). 1 Carlton Gardens could be one of the first of these ‘Halls of Residence’!
I'm not even sure he can sell it. Usually these gifted houses have strings attached - not unlike St. Georges hospital which had to be sold back to Grosvenor estate for what it was sold for in 1900 odd - about £12000 as I recall. But then, detail is not something this lot bother about. Announce first, wriggle later.
You sound as though they are going to 'knock it down' ! Maybe they will sell it and give the money back to the taxpayer - after all we own it, but aren't getting any benefit of it at the moment !
Next stop Chequers, then Buckingham Palace...
Good idea WM
Fine Anon but a few million pounds is a drop in the ocean. We taxpayers could get more benefit if it were used for charity events or as a small gallery. A developer will simply convert it into flats and so our heritage is subsumed.
His family should have stayed in Belgium.
I was reading about this today and felt surprised that it was being sold. The article said it was to boost Treasury funds. Do we need all these grace and favour homes anyway? I'm sure he has the use of gracious rooms for entertaining.
Agree, WW.
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