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| The site of a proposed barrage on the River Wyre, which is a site of Special Scientific Interest.
Photographer: Peter Wakely for Natural England |
The Government might be set to revive plans to create an energy-generating tidal barrage scheme on the on the River Wyre at Fleetwood – a proposal which has been on the table for over 20 years.
Following a call from Lancaster MP Eric Ollerenshaw for a new national policy on tidal energy in the House of Commons earlier this week, Edward Davey, the Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change told him “We do have
generous support for tidal energy and many tidal energy developers are
coming forward with ideas, which we want to encourage.”
While the expansion of nuclear energy continues to
dominate the headlines when it comes to new power generation in the UK,
the Coalition Government continues to investigate alternative energy
sources – and Mr Ollerenshaw has been a fervent supporter of a scheme for the Wyre for some time, as we noted back in 2010.
TH
Technology conducted a £200,000 study into the feasibility of a tidal
energy barrage over the Wyre estuary in the early 1990s, commissioned by
Lancashire County Council and the Department of Energy, which
contributed a grant of £133,000 towards the investigation.
Construction News
reported that the objective of the nine-month study was to establish
the cost and design of the tidal energy barrage as well as its possible
effects on the surrounding environment.
In 2007 Garstang Today
reported that TH Technology’s preliminary – and only report into the
barrage study, which would be built on a Special Scientific Interest
site – prompted huge controversy when it was published, with many
farmers on both sides of the River Wyre fearing it would upset the
tidal flow of the river and lead to flood fields on the low lying farm
land.
The newspaper also reported that since the
initial report suggesting a barrage was published in 1992 there have
been major changes in Fleetwood’s dockland which could mean a re-think
for the exact location of the barrage on both sides of the river.
The
study estimated that the cost of the barrage, which it was estimated
would have a generating capacity of 63.6MW, would be £90 million —
at 1991 prices. It included the construction of a nine metre wide
promenade across the barrage, and considered the use of the barrage as
a road crossing.
Parliament’s official journal, Hansard
noted that consideration of the protection of any barrage turbines
from large objects would need to form part of a more detailed design
study but it was felt that a “trash” screen would provide sufficient
protection. Two fish passes were included in the outline design to
provide passage for migrating fish but the report also stated further
work was required to more fully assess the impact of a barrage on
migrating fish.
A report by the Lancaster University Renewable Energy Group in 2009 (PDF link) suggested such a barrage had a potential output of 90MW and was economically viable.
While
modern plans for a barrage across the Wyre seem to have again
re-surfaced, they are in fact, nothing new. An early proposal for such a
scheme came from Captain John May Jameson in 1872, an civil engineer to
Sir Peter Hesketh Fleetwood and later to a baronet’s son.
Catherine Rothwell, author of Fleetwood: A Pictorial History notes in a letter to the press in 2007
that he proposed “an iron way between both sides of the River Wyre, at
the same time providing for the passage up-river of shipping”.
Her
book includes a chapter on the Jameson family based on the actual
correspondence of the founder of Fleetwood and upon the Fleetwood
Estate papers, now at the Lancashire Record Office which she classified
and catalogued while librarian at Fleetwood Library before her
retirement.
• Tidal Power in the UK – Case Studies
Report on the Sustainable Development Commission web site