London:
Britain's Royal Family has come under criticism, after it emerged that the wife of the Queen's youngest son Prince Edward used a chopper just for travelling a mile, a journey which would have taken four minutes by car.
The Countess of Wessex, 45-year-old Sophie, was flown from a school in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, 1.1 miles down the road to a care home during a round of official visits this week,
the 'Daily Express' reported.
After flying from Bagshot, in Surrey, Sophie's first visit was to Grange Park School for children with autism spectrum conditions in Wrotham, Kent. A patron of the National Autistic Society, she then flew 43.6 miles to a second engagement at St Mary's School in Bexhill.
Prince Edward's wife rounded off the day with a helicopter trip down the road to the Royal British Legion Mais House, a care home for former servicemen and women, also in Bexhill, the report said.
Her trip was criticised by environmental campaigners. Spencer Fitz-Gibbon of the Green Party said: "We would want to encourage the Royal Family to pay close attention to its carbon footprint, not least because of the value of the example that can be set."
However, a Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said "every option" had been looked into before using the helicopter.
She said: "Two of the visits were schools and it was decided to use a helicopter to get her to the second venue on time. There would have been no other way of doing it within the time constraints."