By Sarah Woolley. Cover image: A small crowd watches the coronation in Cardiff Castle, courtesy of Rhiannon White
Official public celebrations in Cardiff for King Charles’ coronation may have cost up to £80,000.
Cardiff Council’s decision to spend £45,000 of its own money on official, public coronation events has been called ‘shocking’, ‘foolish’ and ‘wasteful’ as the council face a budget gap of more than £24.2m.
However, in addition to its £45,000 coronation budget, £35,000 was also allocated to Cardiff Council from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, bringing the total figure to £80,000.
The allocated figure of the council’s own funds was published by the independent news site openDemocracy and voice.wales has taken a closer look at where this money went when poorest residents are ‘eating pet food.’
Cardiff Council told voice.wales that it set aside £35,000 in council funds to facilitate these events and a further £10,000 was set aside to support 44 street parties by waiving road closure fees.
On Saturday 6th May, the coronation of King Charles III was live streamed at Cardiff Castle alongside a 21-gun salute and a ‘Right Royal’ picnic. Further celebrations were screened at Cardiff Bay on Sunday when the city took part in ‘Lighting Up The Nation’ with 300 illuminated drones.
The council says it did not fund the royal gun salute or the light show, but its budget supported the delivery of these events as it worked in partnership with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Welsh Government, the Military, and the BBC on the weekend’s events.
Before the coronation, more than £1m was made available by the Department and authorities were only able to use this funding for big screens.
Most councils in Wales didn’t allocate any spending toward royal-themed events and Cardiff Council accounts for 98.4% of planned coronation expenditure from Welsh councils.
Wales Green Party leader Anthony Slaughter told voice.wales that Cardiff Council’s coronation budget was “shocking” when it has “a significant black hole in its annual budget which will lead to reduced services and damaging cuts in public provision.”
Earlier this year, Cardiff Council voted to increase school meal costs by 5% and it consulted residents on cutting library open times.
Anthony Slaughter added that: “It is difficult to understand how this level of spending of public money can be justified on an archaic celebration of an institution that has no place in a modern democracy. It is also notable that many other Councils in Wales, including neighbouring Vale of Glamorgan, felt no need to allocate any funding towards marking the coronation.”
On Saturday, Slaughter spoke to more than 500 people at an anti-monarchy protest organised by the campaign group Cymru Republic. One protestor’s banner read, “God save the poor.”
A spokesperson for Cymru Republic told voice.wales, “£45k is a lot of money. That’s a Deputy Headteacher’s wage for a year. Did the King not offer to help fund such events? The same King whose wealth is £1.8bn? Council money shouldn’t go on venerating the richest in society, it should go on the people of Cardiff. After all, 6 out of 10 areas in Wales with the highest child poverty are in Cardiff. The Council could have spent this money on projects that celebrate everyday people rather than a Billionaire King.”
Only two other councils in Wales confirmed a coronation budget with openDemocracy. Newport allocated £645.61 whilst Denbighshire County Council confirmed a total of £70.
Welsh councils that did not reply to the news site’s Freedom of Information requests include Caerphilly County Borough Council, City and County of Swansea, Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council, Rhondda Cyon Taf County Borough Council, and Wrexham County Borough Council.
Alex, an engineer in North Cardiff, told voice.wales that Cardiff Council’s coronation budget was “an absolute joke” in a cost of living crisis. “I know of people who are struggling to feed their kids, nevermind throwing them a birthday party. Granted it’s not as much as it could have been, but why have the need to do it at all? £35k could go towards something like Tafwyl or the free arts and crafts event they had outside the museum last summer.”
31 year old Nick in Roath told voice.wales that “any amount of council money” was “foolish” and “wasteful” add that “any amount spent on the coronation was “poor taste given the history of English suppression and oppression of Wales and Welsh identity.”
“I am however very impressed with how many stickers ended up on the painted postbox outside the Owain Glyndŵr pub,” Alex added.
The postbox on St John Street made national headlines after it was covered in pro-Welsh Independence and republican stickers and graffiti. The Owain Glyndŵr pub is named after the final ‘official’ Princes of Wales who founded the first recorded parliament in Wales and led a rebellion against King Edward.
The actual spend on the coronation weekend will not be revealed until Cardiff Council publishes its next budget. The previous budget attracted criticism when it emerged that Cardiff Council had spent more than £20,000 on the mayor’s car and chauffeur costs. Cardiff Council defended the expense saying: “the figures being quoted represent a tiny fraction of the Council’s overall net annual budget.”
A council spokesperson told voice.wales: “The Coronation was an event of historic significance and all capital cities across the United Kingdom had a formal role to play in marking the occasion. Cardiff was also selected as one of seven cities to take part in ‘Lighting the Nation,’ the centrepiece of the Coronation Concert which saw Cardiff take part in the largest multi-location drone show ever staged in the UK. Broadcast internationally, the concert showcased some of the city’s iconic buildings to more than 10 million viewers in the UK alone.
“The final costs associated with the coronation events held in Cardiff Castle and Cardiff Bay are in the process of being calculated but are expected to come in below the £35,000 budget that was allocated.
“Where the event is not for profit, Cardiff Council’s policy is not to charge street party organisers a fee for facilitating a road closure. This policy stands all year round, and is not just applicable to facilitating the road closures for the Coronation street parties. The £10,000 was included in Cardiff Council’s 2023/2024 Budget, to plan for the anticipated increase in road closure requests this year, because of the Coronation.”
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport was approached for comment.
