The Crown Estate owns the seabed around the British Isles, including Scotland, out to the 12 mile limit. It has been selling valuable leases on parts of this marine estate in areas of obviously rich potential for marine energy development.

The Crown Estate’s main focus has been, as is that of the Scottish Government, on the powerful Pentland Firth which First Minister Alex Salmond famously described as ‘the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy’. However the Crown Estate is also selling leases for sites with potential as offshore wind farms.

This week it was announced that it was offering exclusivity agreements for the exploration of ten sites in Scotland as potential offshore wind farms. As For Argyll reported, three of these sites are in Argyll: off the west coast of Kintyre close to Machrihanish; to the southwest of Islay; and to the southwest of Tiree. The Tiree site, the biggest of the three, is capable of producing 1.5MW, enough power for up to a million homes.

The  Crown Estate has just announced that it will match-fund the option fees it charges to developers. These option fees cover the period while developers scope the scale of the potential commercial energy development of a site, prepare environmental impact assessments, apply for planning consent and get their financing in place.

The fees charged – which are being set on a sliding scale proportionate to the investment required on each site and with payment spread over two years – and the money from their matching by the Crown Estate, will be invested to accelerate development.

These option fees, while not trivial, are nothing like the scale of fees that will be charged for leasing sites that prove commercially viable. There is no mention of any match funding on this future Crown Estate revenue or even of sharing it with, in this case, Scotland.

So before you think ‘altruism’, think 20:20 vision and strategic survivalism. The Crown Estate is buying time and buying it with a seemingly grand gesture that will cost it relatively little.

It will not be long before the general public becomes aware of what could be effectively presented  as a second stealing of revenue from Scotland’s energy wealth. When that happens, the Crown Estate’s blanket historical ownership, born of feudal times, will come under serious scrutiny. So will its management of that estate. A plethora of small matters such as its dispute with the Rothesay Bay Moorings group will cast its stance as grasping in small as well as in large.

The game is a good spectator sport but let’s be clear about what the game is about. It’s not about a generous and forward-looking contribution to developing Scotland’s power. It’s about hanging on to ancient, unearned and profitable rights.