From the Tyne to Morecambe Bay, coastal towns have been waiting for clarity. New regulations, signed by DEFRA minister Emma Hardy on 24 November and laid before Parliament on 25 November, set up Marine Recovery Funds that start on 17 December 2025.

Made under section 292 of the Energy Act 2023, the rules allow government to create pots that pay for measures to compensate for environmental effects from “relevant offshore wind activities”. According to the Statutory Instrument on legislation.gov.uk, funds can be established for England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland individually, or in combination.

For Northern communities tied to the North Sea and Irish Sea, that territorial flexibility matters. It opens the door to ringfenced arrangements that match local impacts and priorities across the Humber, Teesside, the Tyne and Barrow, rather than a one‑size‑fits‑all scheme centred on London.

Here’s the core mechanism. Where a developer has a compensation condition attached to consent, they can apply to pay into a Marine Recovery Fund instead of running their own scheme. After an application process that can include expressions of interest, initial agreements and deposits to reserve measures, the Secretary of State allocates an approved measure and offers an MRF contract that sets the payment and terms.

Payments into a fund can be made by the Secretary of State, by an applicant in anticipation of a contract, or by a participant under the contract itself. Once the first instalment lands, responsibility for delivering the allocated measure moves to government or its delegate, shifting risk away from individual projects and towards a programme approach.

DEFRA must publish a list of approved measures and can limit where and how long they run. Crucially for councils and charities with work already underway, the regulations allow the fund to pay for approved measures that have already been delivered, in full or in part.

Monitoring is mandatory. For a period set in each contract, the Secretary of State must track whether a measure is achieving the outcomes stated. If results lag, the rules allow the measure to be adapted, replaced or supplemented, and later decommissioned or re‑allocated.

Devolution is built into the design. With the consent of devolved ministers, the Secretary of State can delegate the running of a fund to a Scottish, Welsh or Northern Ireland public authority, and the delegation can be tailored to a single territory. If Westminster intends to cancel a delegation, it must consult for at least 12 weeks.

The same 12‑week minimum consultation applies before closing a territorial fund to new applicants. That safeguard, written into the instrument, gives coastal businesses and marine users time to respond if a change would hit local projects.

The geography of impacts and measures isn’t rigid. A fund created for a particular nation can finance measures inside or outside that nation if that better fits the environmental effect being compensated. Funds can also be extended later to add another territory.

Fees will apply. DEFRA can set non‑refundable fees to recover costs, possibly linked to the value of the measure, and MRF payments can include amounts for developing measures and for monitoring, adaptation and decommissioning. The department must publish the application procedure and any fee schedule.

For Northern authorities, fishers and harbour boards, the immediate job is practical: map credible measures-habitat projects, seabird work, or fisheries research-and be ready when DEFRA publishes the approved list. With the rules coming into force on 17 December, the test will be whether funding follows the tides that power this region’s offshore wind industry.