Now Air Miles Eddie takes helicopter for a 67-mile hop home

After furore over Prince’s £10,000 private jet trip...

HE WAS already under fire for using a private jet for two short jaunts around the UK.

Now Prince Edward has cost taxpayers a further £3,000 by climbing aboard the Royal helicopter to make the 67-mile journey home after a morning spent playing real tennis.

He opted to take a 40-minute trip on the Agusta A109S Grand to Bagshot Park in Surrey following his match in Dorset, instead of making an 80-minute drive along the M3 and M27. It came the day after he was dubbed ‘Air Miles Eddie’ by critics for spending an estimated £10,000 of public money getting to Dorset in the first place.

On Tuesday, he was driven to an airport near his home to take a Cessna 560XL jet to Birmingham airport. He was then driven to Tamworth, Staffordshire, for a service to mark the 1,100th anniversary of the death of Aethelflaed, Lady of Mercians, the daughter of Alfred the Great.

Later that day, Edward took the private jet for a 30-minute flight to Bournemouth before visiting a luxury yacht shipyard in Poole.

On Wednesday, he visited the Hyde Real Tennis Club at nearby Walditch before driving to Canford School at Wimborne. Following an overnight stay, he played real tennis with pupils before heading home in the helicopter at 1.20pm.

The trip was part of his charity quest to visit each of the world’s 47 real tennis courts this year.

The Queen’s Helicopter Flight is funded by the Sovereign Grant. Paid by the Government from taxpayers’ funds, the grant was £76 million last year.

Former Liberal Democrat Minister Norman Baker said: ‘This is an example of the Royal Family’s outrageously profligate way of wasting taxpayers’ money when it comes to travel.

‘They have no compunction about using private jets and helicopters for even the shortest journeys. Everyone else is making cuts, but they are spending our money like there is no tomorrow.’

Prince Edward is not the only Royal to be criticised for a jet-set lifestyle. Yesterday, it was revealed that elder brother Andrew spent up to £5,000 on an executive helicopter to make trips totalling 146 miles in a day when he also had a chauffeurdriven car to ferry him around.

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said: ‘Safety, security and effective use of time were taken into account when deciding on the most appropriate means of travel.’

‘They spend our money like there’s no tomorrow’