The city, which paid over £17,000 in 2024, is the 19th Welsh council to back the call
CARDIFF Council has voted to join calls to bring the Crown Estate, which owns vast swathes of land and sea in Wales, under Welsh control.
The decision last night (March 27) makes Cardiff the 19th Welsh council out of 22 to pass a motion supporting the devolution of the Crown Estate and bring its profits to Wales.
The Crown Estate, a portfolio of land and property which belongs to the monarch, owns 65% of the foreshore and riverbed in Wales, and over 50,000 acres of land.
Up to 75% of the profits the Crown Estate makes from these assets goes to the UK Government in London – with 25% going to the monarch.
The change would bring Wales in line with Scotland, where management of the Crown Estate was devolved in 2017. Since then, Crown Estate Scotland’s latest annual report shows it has generated £103 million for the Scottish public purse.
In Cardiff, the Crown Estate owns parts of the River Ely and the River Taff, including the stretch next to the Principality Stadium, and part of the sea near Cardiff Bay.
The motion, brought by Plaid Cymru councillor Rhys Owain Livesy at an all-council meeting in Cardiff Bay, stated that Cardiff Council paid over £17,000 to the Crown Estate to use these assets in 2024.
That included payments for pedestrian footways and bridges over rivers, water taxi charges and slipway leases, and boat hoisting fees.
He said a separate Freedom of Information request by Plaid Cymru suggested the figure paid by Cardiff Council to the Crown Estate for lease fees could be as high as £37,000.
Those sums are being paid while Cardiff Council faces a budget gap of £27.7 million, which has led to a 4.95% increase in council tax for 2025/26.
“The financial burden on local authorities has become unsustainable. We’re experiencing unprecedented pressures on our budgets, yet the money that could support our communities is instead leaving Wales,” said Councillor Livesy.
In 2023/24, the Crown Estate generated a record £1.1 billion in profit. The value of Crown Estate holdings in Wales has risen from £96m in 2020 to over £853m in 2023.
“This is wealth that should be reinvested in Wales, funding public services, infrastructure and economic development for our communities,” he said.
A 2023 YouGov survey by YesCymru revealed that 75% of people in Wales support the devolution of Crown Estate assets.
Thursday’s motion was passed with 55 votes in favour and 10 against after it was amended by Labour.
The Labour amendment retained support for the principle of the motion but asked for more clarity about the implications of devolving the Crown Estate on the Welsh block grant – which would be reduced as a result.
The block grant is the money allocated annually by the UK Parliament to the Welsh Government, which the Welsh Government then chooses how to spend.
Labour councillor Peter Huw Jenkins, who proposed the amendment, also raised concerns that the move would mean Crown Estate profits would simply change hands from the UK Government to the Welsh Government – and wouldn’t end up in the pocket of the council.
The amended motion now states that the devolution of Crown Estate assets to Wales should include the devolution of those assets to a local government level.
Blaenau Gwent Council also voted in favour of a motion on Thursday that supported the devolution of the Crown Estate.
Pembrokeshire, Newport and Torfaen are the three remaining councils which are yet to vote on a similar motion.
Councillor Jenkins said: “I’m really pleased that 55 Cardiff councillors voted for the amended motion. Overall, this makes Cardiff number 19 out of 22 councils in Wales who have voted for the devolution of the Crown Estate. You don’t get to that level of cross-party support without a clear justification, and I think we’ve seen that across Wales.
“Cardiff’s motion should be distinguished by its clear call for subsidiary devolution, as I said in the debate, we don’t believe we should continue to pay fees on cycleways and footpaths just by the virtue of them being over or by rivers. Where appropriate those rights should be transferred to the local authority. Simply replacing one landlord with another is not good enough and clearly a vast majority of councillors in Cardiff agreed with that.”
The devolution of the Crown Estate has become a thorny issue for Welsh Labour after a vote in Westminster last month which saw its MPs in Westminster vote against a Plaid Cymru amendment to the Crown Estates Bill to transfer the management of its assets to Wales.
Currently, the Welsh Government and Plaid Cymru support devolution of the Crown Estate. Last month, Labour First Minister Eluned Morgan acknowledged there was disagreement on the issue between the UK Labour Government and the Welsh Labour Government.
They say that bringing the Crown Estate under Welsh control would mean revenue raised from projects like offshore windfarms could be reinvested directly to Wales.
