The UK government’s Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) intends to establish a Marine Recovery Fund (MRF) for use by relevant offshore wind activity across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Once operational, it will be a voluntary mechanism that organisations undertaking relevant offshore wind activities (such as developers or plan promoters) can pay into to secure appropriate and strategic compensatory measures to compensate for the adverse environmental impacts of their projects on protected sites.
Defra is consulting with stakeholders in order to test the design and proposed policy of the MRF and gain evidence to strengthen the policy.
Offshore wind energy deployment is critical to achieving Clean Power by 2030 and accelerating to net zero by 2050 – the UK government’s recently published Clean Power Action Plan sets a capacity range of between 43 to 50 giga watts (GW) by 2030.
While offshore wind will play a key role in delivering the clean power mission, these developments can have adverse impacts on protected habitats and species throughout the project lifecycle. The challenges associated with managing the tension between the government’s ambitions for offshore wind and the need to appropriately compensate for these adverse environmental impacts has created a barrier to the consent of offshore wind projects.
The new MRF aims to:
- speed up decision making within the planning and consenting process for relevant offshore wind activities, contributing to the delivery of the government’s Clean Power 2030 mission; and
- deliver more effective and strategic measures to compensate for the adverse environmental impacts of offshore wind-related activities on protected sites.
The consultation seeks views on proposals relevant to England, Wales and Northern Ireland, while plans for the operation of a Scottish Marine Recovery Fund are considered in parallel.
Library of Strategic Compensatory Measures
It is intended that the MRF will deliver compensatory measures deemed suitable by the Defra Secretary of State (or, where relevant, Ministers in the Devolved Governments). These measures will be drawn from the Library of Strategic Compensatory Measures (LoSCM).
By using measures from the LoSCM, the MRF will provide offshore wind developers with access to the most effective and strategic options for compensation, including measures they cannot deliver themselves, and the opportunity to discharge their responsibilities for delivering compensation by payment into the MRF.
Establishing the Marine Recovery Fund
The MRF is intended to help accelerate decision-making within the planning and consenting process, while protecting the marine environment, by:
- Delivering the required compensation for multiple projects simultaneously so that developers will no longer need to deliver these independently;
- Utilising pre-approved measures from the LoSCM, speeding up decision-making within the planning and consenting process by removing protracted discussions about the suitability of compensatory measures;
- Targeting compensation in the most effective locations, resulting in more benefits to the MPA network; and
- Providing compensation for adverse environmental effects that can only be compensated for with measures delivered by government, such as the designation of new MPAs and/or the extension of existing MPAs as compensation for damage to benthic features. The MRF will allow access to government-delivered measures, unlocking multiple offshore wind projects that are at risk due to a lack of ecologically effective options that developers can deliver themselves.
Consultation timelines
The consultation will run from Monday 31 March 2025 to Monday 12 May 2025. At the end of the consultation period, Government will publish a summary of responses and an outline the next steps.
The consultation and associated questions can be found online.