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Crown Estate is a bit of an enigma. If nobody else owns the seabed, then Crown Estate does. This applies to most tidal waters. It is not a regulator, but holds real power, almost unaccountably. Crown Estate tries to behave as a commercial landlord, and seeks to maximise income to the government. But as it has no competition, it is a monopoly landlord. There is little recognition that their duty should be to the people as a whole.
One result is the way in which Crown Estate ramped up mooring charges in places like Southampton Water, Lymington and other Solent rivers and estuaries is that watersport has become unaffordable to many people who had an old boat and enjoyed a little cruising or a spot of fishing. Crown Estate argue that demand would have led to the same result, but I do not wholly accept this argument, having seen the impact on my yacht club and others in the area.
To be fair, Crown Estate does take its responsibilities seriously. Although they cannot grant a final consent - for example for winning sea dredged aggregate - they can influence that decision. They have funded extensive research to establish the limits to such activities that would not result in significant long term ecological damage. And in the Hamble, they were probably the driving force to the recent moorings reorganisation studies when they realised that many of the mooring piles needed replacing. Even so, the issue of capacity has not been addressed.
Crown Estate is almost above the constitution. I understand that one NGO has a draft Private Members Bill ready to change that status, but recognises that such a proposal would almost amount to changing the constitution! Perhaps a Select Committee could and should look at the objectives for Crown Estate, if the Commons has the power to do this!
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