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  • The Crown Estate is a diverse property business valued at more than £7 billion. We have been trusted to manage a wide range of properties across the UK including commercial and retail properties. In the country, it includes agricultural land, parkland and forestry. It includes shopping centres, business parks, farms and housing. And we have over half the foreshore and almost all of the seabed around the UK.

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  • We hope you're here because you believe your talents and experience match the exciting opportunities which exist in our unique organisation.

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  • The Crown Estate's urban portfolio comprises a wide and varied mix of properties ranging from modern purpose-built offices, retail and shopping centres to Grade I listed buildings.

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    Retail

    Prime retail is one of our core sectors.

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  • We manage virtually the entire seabed out to the 12 nautical mile territorial limit, as well as around half of the foreshore.

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    Aggregates

    Our estate includes the rights to explore and utilise the mineral interests of the UK continental shelf.

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  • The Crown Estate is a key player in supporting the delivery of a diverse and secure energy supply for the UK.

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    Offshore wind energy

    As managers of the seabed out to the 12 nm limit, we play a major role in the development of the offshore wind energy industry in the UK.

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• Rural

  • The rural estate comprises the agricultural, mineral and forestry estates in England, Scotland & Wales, as well as residential and commercial property.

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    Agriculture

    Our agricultural interests include both livestock and arable farming over 106,000 hectares (263,000 acres) across the UK.

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• Windsor

  • The Windsor Estate covers approximately 6,400 hectares and includes Windsor Great Park, the Home Park of Windsor Castle, extensive forests, residential and commercial properties, golf courses, a racecourse and let farms.

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    The Royal Landscape

    Situated in the southeast corner of Windsor Great Park lies The Royal Landscape, featuring the famous Savill and Valley Gardens.

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Working with us

Overview

Overview

Managing agents

Our core team is supported by regionally based managing agents who maintain a local presence on our behalf. They provide expertise in specialist areas, carry out rent negotiations under clear guidelines laid down by us and the full range of day to day management work on our behalf.

To find your managing agent please visit our agents page:

Agents A-Z

Scotland

Scotland has some of the best sailing waters in Europe and demand for mooring space is high. To manage the provision of moorings on Crown Estate seabed we have a licensing system in place and staff dedicated to helping coastal communities make the most of this limited resource.

For further information please visit Moorings in Scotland.

River Hamble

On the River Hamble in Hampshire we own around 1,200 midstream river moorings, ranging from mud berths to piles with pontoons. The River Hamble Harbour Authority manage the annual licensing of these moorings and the waiting list on our behalf.

Documents containing the relevant charges for 2011, including the separate harbour dues set by and payable to the River Hamble Harbour Authority, can be found in the 'Useful documents' section on the side of this page.

For further information please visit Moorings at Hamble.

Moorings in Scotland

Moorings in Scotland

Scotland has some of the best sailing and cruising waters in Europe and demand for mooring and anchorage space is high. With over 5,500 licensed moorings across the whole of Scotland, we have the lead role in managing the provision of mooring space for the Scottish boating community.

Working with the community

Our staff are dedicated to helping coastal communities make the most of what is a limited resource. Working with a wide range of marine users and stakeholders in the north and west of Scotland, where the majority of moorings are found, our unique licensing system manages the provision of mooring space for the benefit of all marine users.

We maintain close links with other bodies with an interest in moorings such as Marine Scotland, Northern Lighthouse Board, RYA Scotland and the West Highland Anchorages and Moorings Association (WHAM). In addition, the Clyde Moorings Committee, a voluntary body established by us in the early 1980s, brings together those organisations with an interest in managing the provision of moorings in the Clyde to assess applications and act as a conduit for news and the sharing of best practice.

The cost of a mooring licence for an individual mooring is £80 per year (the equivalent of 22p per day), and this can be reduced where mooring owners form a moorings association.

There are currently over 50 moorings associations across Scotland providing local management in mooring areas. Once established, a moorings association is given an agreement for an area of seabed enabling it to manage the moorings within this area. Moorings associations are suitable for groups of ten or more moorings and provide a degree of security as pressure on areas traditionally occupied by moorings increases. In return for setting up an association each mooring owner pays a reduced fee of £40 per year.

Welcome Anchorages guide

An updated guide to the mooring and anchorage areas in Scotland has been produced for the 2011 season. Supported through our programme of marine stewardship, we hope it leads to a wider enjoyment of sailing in Scottish waters and brings benefits to coastal communities from increased numbers of visitors.

To download the guide, please follow the link under 'Useful documents' on the side of the page.

Further enquiries

If you have any questions related to obtaining our consent, or are interested in forming a moorings association, then please contact your local managing agent or one of our West Coast marine officers who will be happy to help.

West Coast marine officers

Argyll to Nevis & Inner Isles

P-J Korbel
Marine officer
telephone: 01546 600 123
mobile: 07768 501 111

Nevis to Eriboll and Outer Hebrides (plus Skye)

Rob Adam
Marine officer
telephone: 01445 741 339
mobile: 07775 652 911

For any further queries, please email us at Enquiries.

Hamble

Hamble

We manage the tidal stretches of the Hamble riverbed and since 2002 have owned and managed the 450 or so piled moorings and mooring areas, together providing around 1,200 competitively priced moorings for the public and local boat clubs and yards. Facilities range from mud berths to mid-stream pontoon moorings.

Hampshire County Council has a 50-year environmental lease of the riverbed and, through the on-site harbour master, manages the public moorings on our behalf. Blocks of moorings held by clubs and commercial concerns are managed by Chesterton Humberts from their Southampton office.

Mooring charges have been set for 2011. The following links list the relevant charges, including the separate harbour dues set by and payable to the River Hamble Harbour Authority.

Mooring fees

Deepwater mooring fees PDF (55 KB)

Drying mooring fees PDF (55 KB)

Piles mooring fees PDF (60 KB)

Further information

Chesterton Humberts

River Hamble Harbour Authority

Moorings law

Moorings law

This is a broad overview which does not intend to be legal advice to the reader and must not be relied on as such. It relates only to marine, not inland, waters.

Introduction

Mooring has more than one meaning. As a verb, to moor means simply to park a vessel by attaching it to something, which may be either on the shore or on the bed. As a noun, it means the tackle to which a vessel can be attached, normally embedded by means of heavy ground tackle of some sort, from which a cable or chain connects to a floating buoy.

The act of mooring - in the sense of parking a vessel on a mooring - needs to be distinguished from anchoring. There is a simple difference - anchoring involves letting out one or more anchors which are stowed on board while the vessel is sailing or motoring whereas mooring - involves securing the vessel to tackle which remains in place when the vessel sails away.

When moorings are described as permanent, it is generally to distinguish mooring to them from anchoring. It does not mean that they are literally left in place for ever, but simply for a significant period of time, for example the duration of a sailing season.

Statutory consents

It is generally thought that a single mooring laid for recreational purposes does not require planning permission, although some believe this is not entirely clear.

Under Section 5 of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985, a "FEPA Licence" is needed to deposit articles in the sea or under the seabed. Under Section 34 of the Coast Protection Act 1949, a "Section 34 consent" is required to deposit any object on the seashore below mean high water springs, if it is likely to result in obstruction to navigation.

These are both relevant to moorings and are dealt with by the Marine Management Organisation set up under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009.

Harbour legislation and byelaws

Harbour legislation has been enacted locally over some centuries and can differ widely in its content between one location and another. Most, if not all, harbour authorities will have wide powers to regulate moorings but the precise extent of these powers will depend on the specific local statutes.

Maritime local authorities sometimes create byelaws which control or regulate mooring in some way. Again, one cannot generalise but must look at the specific locality.

Landowner consent

The placing and use of a mooring in principle requires the consent of the owner of the bed. In the UK the Crown owns roughly half the foreshore and almost all the seabed, through the Crown Estate Act 1961 we manage it on behalf of the nation. The legal rules governing the landowner's position described in this note apply both to the Crown and to non-Crown landowners.

The principle of landowner consent can be affected by various issues:

1. Harbour areas

In regulated harbour areas, the harbour authority is sometimes the owner of the bed, but often is not. Even if it is not, the harbour legislation may contain provisions which affect landowner rights in some way. Where the Crown owns bed within a harbour area, its landowner rights are generally protected by a Crown saving clause in the legislation. However, Crown saving clauses are not always in identical form. They are not always found even where there is Crown seabed, and it does not follow that the Crown will have lost its rights. There may also be saving clauses in favour of non-Crown landowners. So, once again, close scrutiny of the specific legislation is essential.

2. Long usage

It is a broad principle of property law that, if something has gone on for a long time without objection, whether it be using a right of way or occupying land to which one has no title, the law will eventually recognise the fact and give the person doing it the legal right to continue. Unfortunately, it is unclear how this principle would be applied by the courts in relation to moorings - the case law is hazy and sometimes contradictory. The possibilities are:

• Customary rights. Something which has been practised since time immemorial by reference to a particular locality may acquire the legal status of a custom, which is a form of local law. But there are two major obstacles to establishing mooring as a custom of a given place. First, the legal criteria defining a custom are precise and quite difficult to meet. A custom of mooring which might have been established in past times by the fishing fleet of local inhabitants of a coastal community will not simply transfer so as to benefit present day recreational boat owners who may hail from much further afield. Both the purpose of the moorings and the class of persons benefited by the custom must have been clear and consistent. Secondly, many of the places where the local inhabitants have moored continuously for many years are probably within harbour areas, where it is likely that legislation will have overridden any customary rights which might once have existed.
• A prescriptive easement. An easement is a right enjoyed over one property for the benefit of another, such as a right of way. The property which enjoys the right must be "capable of benefiting" in the eyes of the law, which usually means being contiguous with, or close to, the land over which the right is claimed. It would seem that mooring in the sense of tying up a vessel to one's own adjacent land is capable of being an easement, in which case it can be acquired by prescription - that is, 20 years' continuous usage without objection or consent. But that will not be the case where a mooring is offshore and therefore some distance away from any property of the moorer.

3. Adverse possession, or squatter's rights

If you "possess" someone else's land without objection or consent, after a certain time you can acquire a squatter's title which supersedes the title of the original owner.

Once again, the law is not entirely clear, but it seems that laying a mooring is not of itself regarded as taking adverse possession of the land where it is laid. However, sometimes owners with a marine frontage may be able to show that they have exercised complete control of an area of foreshore or bed, and one of the ways they might do so is by evidence that they have managed moorings in that area. So, while the act of laying a mooring will not of itself be adverse possession, it may contribute to a case for adverse possession of an area within which moorings have been laid.

Public right of navigation

The legal importance of the distinction between anchoring and mooring is that anchoring is part of the public right of navigation. The public right of navigation in marine waters has been recognised by the common law since medieval times and that includes anchoring. Accordingly, the owner of the seabed cannot charge a boat owner for anchoring in the course of navigation.

That is the common law situation. It should however be noted that statutory provisions, such as harbour legislation, may give some party, for example the harbour authority, the right to charge for anchorage. It was also established many years ago that a landowner who provides facilities or services for anchoring may charge anchorage for doing so (Gann v Free Fishers of Whitstable, 1865).

Mooring is not part of the public right of navigation. (Fowley Marine v Gafford, 1967; Fairlie Yacht Slip v The Crown Estate, 1979). A case brought in 2010 provided historical corroboration of why this is so. The evidence of a respected naval historian confirmed that mooring as we understand it only became a recognised nautical practice in the 18th century. The medieval right of navigation cannot have included any ancient right to moor. Nor, which was the point at issue in the case, could a royal charter granted to a maritime community before 1600.

Updated May 2011

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