Even though King Charles has been battling cancer for the past two years, he’s kept up an impressive schedule of hosting state visits. People had gotten used to Queen Elizabeth II’s state-visit schedule in her later years, where she hosted world leaders maybe once or twice a year, and usually in Buckingham Palace. Charles really changed it up. Buckingham Palace is still undergoing a decade-long renovation and refurbishment, so Charles has used Windsor Castle to stage and host state visits, conferences and all kinds of significant meetings. The problem? Apparently, the monarch makes the local community pick up the costs of all of these state visits. That… is really ridiculous?? The Windsor locals think it’s ridiculous too and they’re refusing to pick up the costs.

A council has said it will not support any more state visits after the costs of hosting Donald Trump at Windsor Castle last year were not reimbursed. The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead said it had spent at least £350,000 on visits in 2025, including that of French president Emmanuel Macron in July. The council said the same funding could have paid the salaries of nine primary school teachers for a year.

Next month the President of Nigeria is due to come to Windsor to meet King Charles. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) was contacted for a comment.

The council said: “While we appreciate the wider impact this may have for our multi-agency partners, with planning already under way for the visit in March by the president of Nigeria, we don’t have a budget for this support. And, quite simply, local taxpayers can’t continue to be expected to shoulder the burden of decisions made by government to host state visits in Windsor.”

Council deputy leader Lynne Jones said the authority was still talking to the government about the upcoming visit, but would only do “the basics”.

“We’re not prepared to go beyond that without that formal reassurance that the costs will be reimbursed,” she said. “We enjoy the events that are here. We understand that Windsor Castle is a big draw. We like the fact that our borough hosts these events – and we’re very very successful at doing them – but we really cannot accept that our residents are having to pay for a central government event.”

[From BBC]

Exactly – the local community appreciates the fact that the castle is a huge tourist attraction, and it’s sort of cool that all of these state visits are being staged in Windsor now, but it’s completely unreasonable to expect the local community to pick up the costs of coordinating security, shutting down roads, etc, all because Charles is now hosting four or five state visits a year. They can debate who pays for the cost of these visits, whether it be the government or the Windsors out of their annual funding, but it should not be the locals. This is actually really scandalous.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.