The new government has modernized The Crown Estate through the Crown Estate Act 2025, granting expanded borrowing powers, a broader investment remit, and stronger governance. Crucially, the Act enables The Crown Estate to raise external finance for offshore energy infrastructure and supply chain capacity without liquidating assets.

The Crown Estate, empowered by the new legislation, can now invest up to £1.5 bn over the next 15 years with greater flexibility, unlocking opportunities in nationally important areas such as offshore energy, supply chain infrastructure, and digital technologies supporting nature recovery. This marks a shift from passive manager to active delivery partner, allowing co-investment in infrastructure and strategic initiatives that support the 2030 clean power goals.

Building on this policy foundation, The Crown Estate has confirmed its intention to advance the Capacity Increase Programme, first launched in November 2023, which is designed to optimize the potential of existing offshore wind leases. In May 2025, through the Capacity Increase Program, it confirmed its potential to unlock up to 4.7GW of additional offshore wind capacity by amending seabed rights at seven fixed-bottom projects across England and Wales.

Floating offshore wind, meanwhile, continues to be advanced through separate leasing processes such as the Celtic Sea Round 5, highlighting the government’s and The Crown Estate’s dual-track approach to maximising offshore wind deployment. Under the new government, the programme has received explicit policy backing and been integrated into the 2030 clean power strategy, helping accelerate project build-out timelines and reduce leasing bottlenecks.

In parallel, The Crown Estate has committed £400 mn to strengthen the offshore wind supply chain, targeting ports, manufacturing hubs, and key components to ensure deployment can scale in line with the UK’s offshore wind target of 50GW by 2030.

Together, the Crown Estate Act 2025, the Capacity Increase Programme, and the £400m investment position The Crown Estate as a central enabler of clean power delivery—aligning leasing reform, financial flexibility, and industrial capacity. For investors, this provides visibility on project flow and confidence that the UK offshore wind sector has the institutional backing to deliver at speed and scale.