This allocation process will be based on the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) being carried out by the UK Government's Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR), which will examine issues such as the impact on wildlife and habitat, shipping lanes and fishing, with the zones being adjusted to reflect the SEA findings. Consultation is also ongoing with the British Ministry of Defence (MoD), which is concerned with problems of detecting aircraft near wind turbines on radar.

Once the individual sites have been finalised The Crown Estate could co-fund the final stages of the planning process with developers. By 2013 individual sites will start to receive planning permission.

The British Government has targeted 15% of the UK's energy requirement being met by renewable sources by 2020. Meeting this target would require up to 40% of the nation's electricity being generated from wind farms and other renewables such as wave and tidal power. The Confederation of British Industry says energy companies will need to invest up to £60bn over the next 12 years to achieve the 25GW of additional offshore wind farm capacity.

BWEA, the UK wind industry trade association, has welcomed the Crown Estate's announcement of an accelerated timetable for site allocation. BWEA chief executive Maria McCaffery MBE said, 'This is fantastic news for the UK wind industry, with Britain's seas now officially opened for business. This announcement has brought delivery of the 2020 renewable energy targets a great deal closer'

She added, 'BWEA has been calling for the approvals process to be reduced from an average of 8 to 9 years down to 5 to 6 years. This timetable is a very positive move forward. A wide range of developers are already looking to enter the offshore market. If the Government now acts to speed up the rest of the site assessment and approval process we are confident that we can deliver on time. There was a lot of scope for cutting the previous timescales for Rounds 1 and 2. If we are going reach the 2020 deadline then we must act on the lessons from the earlier rounds to get rid of excessive assessment burdens on developers and cut the time it takes to get planning permission.'