The Crown Estate owns £800m in vacant London property - enough for 546 flats, investigation finds

The estate has pumped money into transforming Regent Street into a luxury retail attraction, with brands such as J.Crew Getty Images

The Crown Estate owns £800 million worth of empty properties in London, an investigation has revealed.

The Crown Estate, which runs the Queen’s land and property empire  land and property empire, includes 312 vacant properties in the Greater London area, including Regent Street rooms and other central London spaces including garages and offices, according to City A.M.

The total value of the properties is estimated to be £825 million, based on average price per square foot for the post code and type of property, according to eMoov, an online estate agent. The vacant space could fit 546 new flats based on the size of the average flat in London. 

“We’ve been saying for some time that empty publicly owned properties are an important part of the solution to the housing deficit, but the sheer total is a pretty astonishing value,” Russell Quirk, chief executive of online estate agent eMoov, told City A.M.

The Crown Estate responded that most of the building weren't technically vacant as they were under development or would be demolished. A spokesperson told City A.M. that the majority of the properties included in the investigation had already been torn down under a £1.5 billion plan to redevelop central London.

“We operate in effect like a commercial property developer, so it’s quite natural that we’re taking back leases and redeveloping those assets,” the spokesperson said.

EMoov said that three Regent Street meeting rooms worth nearly £800,000 had been vacant for over 12 years. Some of the 45 properties owned by the Crown Estate have been empty since 2012.

“The country is still in the grip of a housing crisis, whilst an abundance of government owned buildings lie vacant,” said Quirk. He told the paper that local government should “get its arse in gear, quite frankly” and either develop or sell its empty assets.

The Crown Estate posted record profits of £285.1m in the last financial year. These profits are required by an Act of Parliement to be returned to the Treasury for the benefit of public finances. The Treasury then gives 15 per cent of the profits to the Queen.