Nick  warmly welcomes today’s announcement that Greenwich will be made ‘the Royal Borough of Greenwich’ in 2012 as part of the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations. Nick was present in the House of Commons today to hear the announcement.

Nick says: ‘This is fantastic news for Greenwich and a well-merited recognition of the Borough’s substantial long-standing royal connections. King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I were both born in Greenwich which was home to the principal Royal palace of the time. The royal connection continued into the Stuart era when Queen Anne of Denmark, the wife of James I, commissioned the Queen’s House, the first true Renaissance building in England, and King Charles II began the construction of what is now the old Royal Naval College, one of Britain’s finest Baroque masterpieces. The Queen’s House has since become part of the National Maritime Museum, which enjoys the patronage of the Duke of Edinburgh along with the Cutty Sark. HRH Queen Elizabeth II herself opened the new Planetarium and our present monarch has remained a regular visitor to the Borough. I am particularly delighted that Greenwich’s royal title will come into effect in 2012, which coincides with the world-focus on the Borough with its hosting of 2012 Olympic events including the equestrian events and modern pentathlon in Greenwich Park, basketball and gymnastics in the O2, and shooting and paralympic archery at the historic Royal Artillery Barracks’.