15 minutes with...Will Bax

In this episode of 15 Minutes With, CLA Vice President Eliza Ecclestone sits down with Will Bax — Secretary and Keeper of the Records at the Duchy of Cornwall. Will shares the story behind one of England's oldest institutions, from its founding in 1337 to its modern-day mission spanning 130,000 acres, 200+ tenant farms, and ambitious community-building projects like Poundbury. They discuss the Duchy's commitment to regenerative agriculture and net zero, how long-term stewardship shapes decision-making in an era of unprecedented volatility, and what needs to change in planning policy to build beautiful, sustainable communities. A fascinating look at where heritage meets the future of rural Britain.

Transcript

15 Minutes With Will Bax

SPEAKER_00 0:01

This is fifteen minutes with from the Country Land and Business Association. In this episode, CLA Vice President Eliza Eccleston meets Will Bax, the Secretary and Keeper of the Records, at the Duchy of Cornwall.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Will, thanks for being here. Many of our listeners won't know an enormous amount about the Duchy of Cornwall. Can you tell me a bit about it and tell our listeners if you get a job as secretary and keeper of the records, what do you have to do?

What Is the Duchy of Cornwall?

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Well, very nice to be here, Eliza. Thank you for having me. The Duchy of Cornwall, let me start by talking about the Duchy, and then I'll talk a little bit about my role. The title can can throw up some confusions. The Duchy has been around for a little while. It was created in 1337 by Edward III. Today we've evolved to become a hugely diversified business that is present across about 20 different counties of England and into Wales. Our current principal is the Prince of Wales, who happens to be the 25th Duke of Cornwall. The first Duke of Cornwall was the Black Prince or Edward of Woodstock. Today the portfolio includes 130,000 acres of land, of which Dartmoor is nearly half. It comprises over 200 tenants. That being tenant farms. And that's very much the lifeblood of the duchy. And that land is the thing that sort of connects it all together. Beyond land, we build communities and are particularly well known for Poundbury near Dorchester, and more recently, Nansleden, which is an urban extension of New Key.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

We'll definitely be coming onto that in a minute. Great interest in that.

Climate, Environment & Social Mission

SPEAKER_02 1:52

I would say that you know our philosophy is very much to build places that are planned and build to a vision that puts people and nature first. Alongside those things, we have a large portfolio of commercial property, the heart of which lies in Kennington and London. And alongside our social mission, we have a very strong climate and environmental missions. And a huge champions of the idea that humankind will only thrive into the long term if we support nature and biodiversity to flourish. I'd sort of encapsulate a phrase that has become well used recently, but is resonant with me, which is trying to operate very much as a part of nature as opposed to operating apart from it. And that that really guides the philosophy of what the Dutch is about and includes us now taking the rural estate on a transition to regenerative models of agriculture, exploring how we weave renewables more deeply into that, as we said, a very ambitious net zero pathway. Pursue other ambitious social programs that are very much imbued in the passions of the Duke of Cornwall, such as homelessness and mental health. And that all comes together to underpin the purpose of the duchy, which is very much about delivering positive impact to people, to places, and to the planet.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

And you are you are in theory supposed to deliver all of that, are you, Will?

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Well, so hi do up, secretary and keep of the records. I'm sometimes mistaken for being an archivist. So I'm Chief Exec of the Dutchie, and I I oversee that organization, which we manage through a structure of a number of divisions that reflect different fundamental activities of the organization. And increasingly, we we spent a load of time last year resetting the strategy of the organization so that we had real clarity as to how those different parts came together. As a cohesive whole, my job is to hold it all together.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Which I love. Goodness, that sounds like a lot. And you've done a lot before before this, but this must be a quite a steep learning curve, hopefully not too steep.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

Yeah, well, I guess I mean one's journey in life sort of t tends to start interweaving the themes and the experiences that you've accumulated along the way, doesn't it? And the duchy is does that to a degree for me. So I grew up the the son of a land agent and a farmer on a 300-acre farm on the wheels of Kent, not too far away from where you live. And I I then was slightly too independent-spirited and keen to explore the world to dive into the family business. So I spread my wings and ended up after a short period of working in parliament, actually, ended up in the Grosvenor estate, where I spent nearly 15 years. And my final role there was the executive director for the for the London business. So very much an urban property business, running the asset management, the investment, and the development agendas of that portfolio. But throughout all that journey, I had sort of retained this deep love and passion for rural life, the countryside, farming, what drives it. Most of my free time was spent with friends, family, and likewise in that milieu. So the Dutchie brings together both a set of personal passions, but also working working commercial experiences that hopefully give me a reasonable toolkit to do the job that they foolishly entrusted to me.

Navigating Volatility & Long-Term Thinking

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Amazing. Because it always feels to me like people who are running estates, even if they're relatively small estates, have to be lightly across everything, whether it's sort of farming or rental property or neighbor relations or development or planning reform. They have to be across everything. It means that you kind of see a earlier than most broad trends that are coming down the track for the country and for the community. I mean, presumably you've got an even higher horizon than than we all do. What are you seeing coming down the track?

SPEAKER_02 6:22

Yeah, I mean it's a it's a good good question. I mean, you're right that often these businesses are herrily diversified, and therefore they have a variety of lenses that are sort of relevant to the world, don't they? I I don't think actually the scale of the duchy makes that uh you know any easier or any harder than than any other organization. And my my sense is that what's happened over the last five to ten years is we've entered an era of of volatility, which is likely to be the new normal. Yeah, if I look back at the sort of middle part of my career, it was, and we turning the clock back pre-COVID and probably pre perhaps even pre-Brexit, there was this relatively benign set of circumstances that made planning a little easier. And when you look into when I look through the lenses that we we run the duchy through today, that the volatility exists on almost every front, whether or not it's climate change impacting on how we run the rural estate and the decisions that we need to make as a very long-term landowner in terms of supporting long-term viability and sustainability of that asset. Or indeed what we do as a community builder, looking at the challenges that local communities to the duchy face and how we can play an important role in supporting them to realize their potential, which sometimes is through being a developer or a master developer, but in other times it's just understanding how, as a long-term steward, you understand the need of a community and how you can meet that need. And in the short term, we have some extraordinary economic challenges. I mean, we sit here today as the future of the war in the Middle East, which is extraordinary that that's happening now, but we've been waiting for it for a long time. It's happening now. Whether or not that's going to continue, I don't see any short-term solution that doesn't realize an extraordinary economic shock that we all will carry as just as citizens, let alone as businesses. So how do we approach that? Well, I think being really alert to particular areas of risk is important to us, and we tend to take a very long-term view in how we respond to them. So there are things that we manage really closely and very tactically day-to-day, which is the short-term risk around our business. And then there's the long-term strategy that needs to respond to some of the some of those prior issues that I've just touched on. But by taking, by understanding where long-term solutions lie to particularly the environmental and the social challenges we face, we think we're likely to make better decisions. And those decisions include economic decisions, what we invest in today, what assets we we we will continue to hold, but also just how we manage relationships.

Planning, Design & Building Communities

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Yeah, I mean, I'd like this to be a CLA's 60 minutes width. I really have got a lot of follow-up questions there. But if it's okay, can we move to the Humbry and Nams Ledden and that sort of thing? A lot of our members feel that if they want to build something sort of thoughtful and well-designed and long-term and integrated, they still have to go through exactly the same planning process as someone just trying to maximise units at minimum cost. I speak as one of one of them. Are you seeing anything that might give us hope that we might be able to build beautiful things?

SPEAKER_02 10:18

Well, it does, it feels hard at the moment, doesn't it? And and that's I mean, that's not only a function of the planning system, that's a function of the economics that we look into as well. But but but also how the planning, how planning is being politicized in our communities. And I would say actually I've been quite encouraged by DEFRI's approach to the land use framework that they put out. I think that's a good idea in in terms of creating a sort of framework for thinking around land in the longer term. But the question is how that translates into planning policies that allow landowners and communities to find their feet and navigate in the future. We certainly need policy that supports greater design excellence. And I think that long-term landowners have a seriously important role to play there in showing, I suppose, showing the world what's possible in terms of great design. And I go back to that point I was making earlier, design that not only is about beautiful architecture, but really seeks to understand the needs of communities and opens up a much more positive space for communities to have meaningful conversations around what their future is and what it might need in a way that creates an opportunity for people to co-create rather than be told what the answer looks like by developers. However, I also think on on other fronts we need better regulation. So I I worry that planning doesn't come with tough enough environmental regulations in particular. We we we sit right now, this year, the the volume around water in this country is being dialed up significantly at a time when housing delivery is being given a greater priority than ever before. And I think we need to understand much more clearly how we protect the quality of the environment that we all live in that balances both of those needs because we need both things. We need more housing alongside a better quality environment. My other ask, I suppose, on from a policy perspective, is a policy that help that that understands better the economic drivers of development and makes more reasonable asks of people who are doing delivering new communities brilliantly. And that has not been the case in recent years.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Well, that is all amazing food for thought. Thank you so much for taking the time, Will, and good luck with all of that.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Thanks, Eliza. Great talk to you.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

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