Members of the Local Authority are to hear a Notice of Motion at a full council meeting this month, after new data revealed that Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion, and Sir Gâr councils together pay £105,589.29 in fees to the Crown Estate each year to allow public access to their land.

The figure was revealed via freedom of information requests by the office of Cefin Campbell, Plaid Cymru Member of the Senedd for Mid and West Wales.

Currently, Crown Estate profits are received and handled by UK Treasury on behalf of the royal family.

Pembrokeshire County Council pay the Crown Estate £59k a year.

According to Mr. Campbell, the information reinforces his party's call for the devolution of responsibility for the Crown Estate to Wales, which he highlighted in the Senedd recently.

Tenby’s county councillor for the north ward, and Plaid member Cllr Michael Williams will put forward his NoM at PCC’s council meeting on Thursday, March 6.

“The Crown Estates benefits hugely from leasing seabed for offshore wind turbine and other developments, including the potentially huge potential offshore Floating Offshore Developments in the sea off south-west Wales with power being carried through Pembrokeshire into the National Grid,” he stated.

“The creation of the Freeport now brings the issue into sharp focus. These developments could generate huge sums of money, and if the Crown Estates were devolved to Wales, the income amounting potentially to tens of millions of pounds could be used to help address the poverty and inequality throughout our county.”

Cllr Williams has pointed to the fact that in Scotland, the proceeds of the Crown Estates are devolved to the Scottish Government, which amounted to £100 million last year, while currently the Welsh Government gets nothing.

“The Crown Estate should be fully devolved to Wales, and it should need the consent from the Welsh Government before exercising any powers in Wales,” continued Cllr Williams.

“The profits generated from Welsh Crown Estates should be invested directly in Welsh communities and not be paid to the Westminster Government. The Crown Estate owns more that £600m worth of land in Wales, including 50,000 acres and 65% of the seabed around the Welsh coastline, stretching out to a distance of 12 nautical miles, including tidal estuaries.

Cefin Campbell
Cefin Campbell MS raised the issue in the Senedd (Supplied)

“The current Welsh Government have recently reaffirmed its longstanding policy position that the Crown Estate should be devolved to Wales in line with the position in Scotland. The vast majority of Welsh local authorities support this view.

“The Crown Estates has assets of £15.8 billion in the UK and its net profit in 2023/24 was over £1.1 billion. Although officially owned by the monarchy, the sovereign has no control over its affairs since an agreement made in 1760 under which profits are delivered to the UK Treasury, who then decide the annual payment to the King (the Sovereign Grant) - currently £86m,” he added.