Prince William Is Slammed for Letting Town Fall Into a ‘Bloody Awful’ State After $30M Salary Reveal

It’s been another tough year for the royal family after enduring the endless headlines about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s Jeffrey Epstein scandal, but Prince William might be heading into 2026 with a controversy of his own.

The Prince of Wales is sitting pretty financially after the Duchy of Cornwall released its Integrated Annual Report. As the Duke of Cornwall, a title he earned when King Charles III ascended to the throne, his 2025 income was $30 million — the same sum as 2024.

The title comes with quite a substantial land mass, which is how his income is earned annually. Per People, William oversees a $1 billion estate which “spans 130,000 acres across 23 counties in England and Wales and includes land, farms, houses and other assets to support the heir and their family.” But that’s where the controversy comes into play.

The residents of Poundbury, a town built on the Duchy of Cornwall land, are up in arms about Prince William’s lack of detail. One resident told the Daily Mail, “This place is bloody awful now. This was Charles’s baby, but he doesn’t have time to look after it, and William doesn’t want to know.”

Under the then-Prince Charles, the area was built up into a community of “2,320 homes, 4,600 residents and 240 businesses.” It was a project he started in the late 1980s, and it’s due to be completed in 2026. However, the residents feel like they’ve been “abandoned” by Charles since it was his pet project, and William is disinterested in the town’s upkeep, which has been struggling with drug issues and “red tape” to get problems resolved.

The Poundbury resident continued, “If we could move out tomorrow, we could, but we are getting too old to do that…The leaves are piling up, the grass isn’t cut, and the windows are falling apart.”

An US Weekly report noted that King Charles is struggling with his eldest son’s “strong-minded and stubborn” personality, especially as William continues to move in a very different direction from his father’s leadership. The Prince of Wales is interested in modernizing the monarchy, but shows little concern for Charles’ projects — and he’s been quite vocal about it.

“I embrace that, I enjoy … change,” William said in October on Eugene Levy’s The Reluctant Traveler. “I don’t fear it, that’s the bit that excites me, the idea of being able to bring some change. Not overly radical, but changes that I think need to happen.”

William is also going to have to weather the criticism and not forget about the people he represents because the residents of Poundbury are not happy with his leadership right now.

More on the royal family:

Before you go, click here to see all the women Prince William dated before marrying Kate Middleton.