Proposed: Mersey Tidal Barrage

"Steve,

I wish you the best of luck in your new role.

However, I’m not alone in opposing so much time & energy being put into a destructive tidal barrage. i went to the previous barrage consultation and discovered that it would necessitate compulsory purchases of private properties ; result in destruction of wildlife habitats and precious sandbanks; as well as destroying the visual amenity of one of the city’s most lovely features - Otterspool promenade ( almost next to the Britannia pub) This and other destructions, such as increasing the risk of up-stream flooding...all for what amounts to a paltry amount of energy.

Tidal barrages are old technology and are actively being dismantled in other places around the world. It would be better and more constructive, going forward, were you to introduce compulsory use of solar panels and other green technologies on all new builds in the city region.

I, and many others, for the reasons given above will oppose a barrage at every step of the way.

Regards”


RESPONSE

"I am writing in relation to your e-mail of the 15 September.

I understand that you have fears about a Mersey Barrage, but can I assure you that we will use expertise and experience built up on recent projects, including Frodsham Windfarm, Mersey Gateway, Liverpool 2 and Burbo Bank offshore windfarm. These projects have managed to combine deliverable projects with environmental safeguarding. They also give any tidal project a wealth of relevant, local and timely data on the environmental performance of the Mersey and Liverpool Bay. None of this data or project experience was available in 2011, the last time a tidal project in the Mersey was considered.

There are only five equivalent sized tidal energy schemes in the world. La Rance in France built in the 60’s, Bay of Fundy in Canada built in the 70’s and the Shiwa project in South Korea completed in 2016. La Rance and Fundy are both scheduled for expansion before 2020. Liverpool City Region academic and technical expertise has been deployed on the Shiwa project in South Korea. The experience of such recent projects can now help us to create a world class project here.

Tidal energy is one element in a comprehensive LCR Energy Strategy. We are also investing heavily in offshore wind (over 270 turbines now installed in Liverpool Bay), energy from waste plants, solar systems on both properties and solar farms (the first of which is in development in Halton) and critically energy efficiency for our buildings. The City Region has, for the past three years, had the largest social housing energy efficiency retrofit programme in the UK.

A tidal energy project alongside other renewable energy projects would enable the City Region to meet all of its power needs from local, competitive and resilient energy sources by 2030. Very few other cities in the world can have such a realistic goal utilising known energy generation technologies.

Finally I am fully committed to ensuring that any tidal infrastructure will meet the highest environmental standards to mitigate and manage construction and operation impacts.

If you have any further enquiries, please do not hesitate to get in touch."


RESPONSE

"Steve,

I appreciate your response, but don’t feel that you have touched upon local neighbourhood destruction and loss of visual amenity - that would be required in order to actually build the thing. I live local to Otterspool promenade, and for many years have greatly appreciated the space and the peace that this wonderful asset has been able to offer. It is one of the main factors that keeps me living in the city, in fact. I love it. And I’m not alone.

I’ve taken a look at some of the barrage schemes you mentioned, and one of them, at least - the one in La Rance, France, resulted in loss of sandbanks and loss of several species of wildlife - even if over time there was an element of recovery. The barrage at La Rance is also huge - and I simply could not accept such a barrage over the river here in south Liverpool - a densely built-up & populated area - on both sides of the river. I know a few people who could just about come to to terms with a barrage here - if it carried a road, as shown on the various barrage schemes you mention elsewhere - but I’m not sure that this has ever been a stated intention for any Liverpool barrage.

I’m not even sure why the barrage has become such a priority - when wind turbines are becoming ever cheaper to install; and also when the city region lags so far behind other major cities in the construction of office space, and the attraction of companies to the city. Liverpool continues to be neglected and left behind - whilst Manchester powers ahead. Drawing away jobs and companies that would traditionally have been located here. The BalticTriangle is a huge success story, but does not seem to have been a priority, and expansion is under threat because of a lack of space to expand into. So many examples of things that should be a priority - rather than the construction of a huge, ugly, destructive barrage and at an area of the city region which brings so much pleasure to people, and supports much wildlife.

Regards"

Images of La Rance barrage, France:





Images of the Shiwa barrage, South Korea:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2012/may/15/severn-barrage-peter-hain-energy

Guardian article relating to the proposed Severn estuary tidal barrage proposal

"Peter Hain has stepped down from the shadow cabinet to launch a campaign to build the Severn barrage. But what would its impact be on the environment? Leo Hickman, with your help, investigates."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9kZ94FL3mI

You tube film looking at the experience of, and consequences, of the barrage in La Rance, France.

It appears that major silting up is one of the most profound effects of barrages. Sandy beaches and sandbanks turn into metres of thick mud, and tributaries dry up.

Really interesting this, Jane.

Personally, I think clean, local energy should be such a high priority that even severe wildlife impact (which isn't the case with these modern barrages) would be a price worth paying. Less dependence on oil, stabler geopolitics, and - if those pesky scientists are right (which they definitely are) - an increased chance of not rendering the Earth uninhabitable... which hopefully everyone is in favour of.

If building a barrage allows us to close a coal power plant - or take some petrol cars off the roads - then how many future cases of asthma and lung cancer will be avoided? (And, more relevantly to this forum: how much cleaner will our buildings be, too?! ;p )

Every building has its detractors, but I can't think of anything more obviously useful than harnessing waves to power our homes.

Anyway, I totally appreciate where you're coming from and enjoyed reading your alternative view. I hope you don't mind me sharing my opposite perspective

We need to establish first of all whether a tidal barrage can be built at any point on the Mersey, without its local environmental disbenefits outweighing the wider benefit of virtually carbon free electricity in a world menaced by global warming. Without knowing an awful lot about the science, I assume that's at least partly a question of siting, along with the design of barrage and associated infrastructure built.

That ties in too with the question of neighbourhood impact. I agree that an Otterspool - Eastham site would be disastrous in that respect, and also a colossal missed opportunity if a barrage is to be used to improve transport links as part of a combined project. (This of course assumes that that sort of barrage is the best option, and that one or more of the newer, lower profile designs of tidal barrage might not do the job as well.)

The best point for a barrage, from a transport link point of view, would I think be from somewhere around Ellesmere Port, to somewhere on the stretch from.Garston Docks to the airport. That would permit a convenient road and, crucially, rail link. Would a site there really reduce much the energy generated, or increase the construction costs.

I think there are a few issues to consider. Green power and greater cross river connectivity south of tge city centre seem to be a win win situation for the city region on many levels. I'm also not sure that a low lying roadway is so visually intrusive. The result is a large lagoon that will always be full allowing safer water sports/activities..... and a working river on the other side. Of course effects on nature and the various sections of interest up river would have to be considered too. You have to remember that Otterspool is not a natural phenomenon itself and is entirely man-made too. Being able to walk/cycle across the barrage into the wirral/Liverpool, or nust to look up and down the river from mid-river, might be a very interesting improvement in locally amenity. It could also greatly affect transport dynamics... better access to the airport for Wirral, north Wales residents perhaps.... a new Merseyral loop to open up the southern sections of the city centre and Birkenhead etc

peskyhook said:

Really interesting this, Jane.

Personally, I think clean, local energy should be such a high priority that even severe wildlife impact (which isn't the case with these modern barrages) would be a price worth paying. Less dependence on oil, stabler geopolitics, and - if those pesky scientists are right (which they definitely are) - an increased chance of not rendering the Earth uninhabitable... which hopefully everyone is in favour of.

If building a barrage allows us to close a coal power plant - or take some petrol cars off the roads - then how many future cases of asthma and lung cancer will be avoided? (And, more relevantly to this forum: how much cleaner will our buildings be, too?! ;p )

Every building has its detractors, but I can't think of anything more obviously useful than harnessing waves to power our homes.

Anyway, I totally appreciate where you're coming from and enjoyed reading your alternative view. I hope you don't mind me sharing my opposite perspective

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Of course you are entitled to a viewpoint, but as with similar arguments in favour of tidal barrages, you fail to discuss the whole range of negative effects, choosing instead to focus on the one positive.

These negative effects, may, in a dry, theoretical sort of way be negligible or a price worth paying in the minds of some; but I’d suggest, along with many who have seen the negative impacts of these huge barrages, that there have to be better ways forward that are less damaging.

I’m not sure how familiar you are with Otterspool promenade and the riverside walk into the city, but if the experience in La Rance is anything to go by, the beautiful sandbanks, much appreciated by all, would be lost forever to be replaced with thick mud; and with those lost sandbanks a whole host of wildlife. Significant silting is one of the major problems that advocates of tidal power neglect to mention.

Visual amenity and quality of life for local populations is completely over-looked too ( The you tube video I posted is worth a view). Communities are told how the development would bring jobs, and maybe even a new road - but fail to mention that these developments can necessitate compulsory purchases ( & would in Liverpool due to high density of development and housing on either side of the river), as well as taking years to build, & having to claim local beauty spots in the process. La Rance went from having the most beautiful beach in the region, it is said, to having no beach at all. A resource and natural asset lost to generations of local families for evermore.

The tidal barrage in La Rance may well be about to be expanded, but the French have no intention of building any more of them, and they have been rejected in many other places around the world because of the negative impacts on the environment, wildlife and local populations.

These negative impacts are not insignificant and to those that live nearby; they are very significant indeed.There has to be a better forward for the clean, green energy you and I, and most others, would like to see. The barrage idea is not it.

B&I said:

We need to establish first of all whether a tidal barrage can be built at any point on the Mersey, without its local environmental disbenefits outweighing the wider benefit of virtually carbon free electricity in a world menaced by global warming. Without knowing an awful lot about the science, I assume that's at least partly a question of siting, along with the design of barrage and associated infrastructure built.

That ties in too with the question of neighbourhood impact. I agree that an Otterspool - Eastham site would be disastrous in that respect, and also a colossal missed opportunity if a barrage is to be used to improve transport links as part of a combined project. (This of course assumes that that sort of barrage is the best option, and that one or more of the newer, lower profile designs of tidal barrage might not do the job as well.)

The best point for a barrage, from a transport link point of view, would I think be from somewhere around Ellesmere Port, to somewhere on the stretch from.Garston Docks to the airport. That would permit a convenient road and, crucially, rail link. Would a site there really reduce much the energy generated, or increase the construction costs.

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As far as I’m aware a Mersey barrage would not include a road - and besides, the negative impacts on local amenity, beauty and all the other environmental impacts that would go along with it are far too great. I’d hate to think people would support this thing just so that they could say “ Look, the Wirral really is part of the LCR” And any new road link would necessarily be tolled, wouldn’t it.

Thank you for your overview, Jane. Very helpful. I googled what Rotherham is proposing but couldn't find anything concrete. Is he trying to resurrect the scheme that Peel ultimately rejected for a different part of the river?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-13875032

Perhaps a useful way to proceed is to critically evaluate the claims he is making for what a barrage might be able to deliver and examine the extent to which these benefits are evidence-based or can be better achieved by using other measures (turbines, solar panels, whatever) at less cost to the environment.

A barrage won't be cheap. Where will the finance come from? Assuming capital is available is this the best use that can be made of it for the wider city region? Is there any real momentum behind it or is it little more than soft PR for a city region mayor who is struggling to establish himself in this capacity?

As you rightly identified in your email, the city region needs other things more urgently than it needs a barrage across the Mersey. In many ways foregrounding this scheme can be seen as a measure of his incompetence.

Good thread and well done in engaging the metro mayor over this weird notion.

Yes, there is no reason to think that if a barrage is built it will include a road across the Mersey.

As has been discussed elsewhere, the amount of electricity that will be generated by a barrage is so low that it will barely dent the LCR's electricity bill let alone do its bit in cutting down in the country's CO2 emissions in any non-insignificant way.

Steve Rotheram's (or his staffer's) response to openJane's enquiry has if anything hardened by opinion against this idea. Asked to justify it, he cannot besides placing it in a larger picture of the LCR being energy efficient and getting its energy from renewable sources. He offers no tangible direct benefit to the people or economy of the LCR itself. Those pictures of just how horrid barrages appear make me even less inclined to support this scheme. A barrage from New Ferry to Otterspool (which is what is most likely to be proposed according to Peel's report of a few years ago) would be a blight on our metropolitan area.

The bigger picture appears to be the local munchkins' and the London authorities inability to view Liverpool as a *city*, a great metropolitan area that can create business and grow an economy out of commerce and creativity - its assets being its people and its transport connections. Well, we know what is happening to the latter although being bypassed by the country's main transport infrastructure does not seem to be a priority for a metro mayor whose limited powers and responsibilities focus on transport. The city is instead viewed like a problem population clustered around a coal mine. The trick is to keep that coal mine going or find a similar replacement to occupy them. The country in which Liverpool is trapped should view a great metropolis like Liverpool as an asset of itself, rather than a problem to be managed. Allowed to grow and prosper it would result in a better, more balanced, happier and more successful UK that the one we have. Worse than anything this barrage idea, while providing no obvious benefits to the metropolitan area would impact negatively on one genuine and unique asset we do have - our great estuary - as a thing of beauty, a hard-won through the work of the Mersey Basin Campaign ecological habitat and a commercial waterway.

A former contributor to these forums who I believe had worked in officialdom in some capacity once reported that in the 70s or 80s there was a proposal to build a nuclear power station on the Liverpool docks so desperate were local officials/contemptuous were those in London to even consider this. It is terrible that Liverpool's renewed political and economic decline since around 2009 is such that these sorts of hopeless ideas are back, ones so bad that the best one can hope for is that they don't make it off the drawing board and nothing happens instead.

NITBY - Not In Their BackYard

Portobello Red said:

NITBY - Not In Their BackYard

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I often understand this ACRONYM as meaning that people don’t care as long as it is not in their back yard. What you can’t see, doesn’t concern - rather than the other way it tends to be used - which is as a way to dismiss objectors, by trying to make out they are luddites or simply against progress.

I never thought I’d see the day when Green campaigners dismissed concerns about ecology and wildlife, as well as those of local communities and residents.

"The RSPB said that barrage supporters had been “fixated” on outdated environmentally destructive technology.

“We have consistently called for investment in more innovative, potentially less destructive schemes on the Severn which take into account environmental considerations in their design,” added Dr Christian.

Friends of the Earth Cymru director, Gordon James, said: “We have long argued that the Cardiff to Weston-super-Mare barrage would have been too costly in both financial and environmental terms, and that better options exist to harness this important source of clean energy.

“The Severn Estuary is a very important source of renewable energy that ought to be harnessed as soon as possible.

“We believe this could be done by other less damaging technologies, such as tidal lagoons, tidal reefs and a Shoots barrage, and we hope the Government will pursue these better options urgently.”

Aesthetics don't come into it really. We've got wind farms on the landscape and any views from New Brighton are of active industrial/docklands/Seaforth.

If red cranes and turbines aren't detracting of the natural beauty of the north Liverpool/Wirral coast, I can't see a barage detracting.

The environmental concerns of course need to be considered, but we live in a cancerous environment presently, and global warming from carbon is destroying the planet. That needs addressing, even if a few habitats are affected (nature adapts anyway).

Friends of the earth would realise that unless we change direction in terms of fuel, there won't be a recognisable earth to be friends of.

The estuary's flats and banks above Garston/Eastham are part of a wildlife area which attracts many species of migratory birds, lots of which over-winter in that area. A fact which would add to any cost, (the wildlife protection lobby certainly mounting a court challenge,) to any proposal for altering the natural flow of the Mersey.

I believe the Governments of Canada and provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have abandoned any plans for further altering the tidal flow of Fundy, the largest tidal range in the world or the upper reaches of Fundy at Chignecto and Cobequid Bay's. They are, instead, experimenting with "seabed" energy generating devices which, so far, offer no visual impairment to local scenery. According to Canada's department of Oceans, Fisheries & Wildlife have not detected any impact, positive or negative, on the abundant stocks of sea creatures in the area. That also includes sea mammals like whales and seals. The study is on-going.

A lesson from history :- Liverpool owes its fortune in part due to a river barrage.

The weir built across the River Dee by Earl Hugh Lupus in 1093 allowed mills to be placed near the current Watergate and generated power for grinding corn (some of you may know the old folk song Miller of the Dee which became famous and was hummed by Rod Steiger in the film No way to Treat a Lady which implies how rich the Dee Miller became). Though it created wealth for the Miller and today forms part of a very effective river management system of the whole Dee basin it was counter productive for maritime trade in that the basin created towards the sea still required a high tide for vessels to leave the river enter the Estuary (which in those times started at the Old Water Tower. It quickened Chester's demise as a port and gave Liverpool with no such problems an easier path to becoming the main sea port in the Irish Sea and then the main port of Empire.

Seems simple to me given the geography of the Mersey, to maximise the electric current generated from a water current it would have to be built at the narrowest part of the Mersey meaning reduced construction costs and maximised profits. Heading up the river the river creates a series of channels with sandbanks visible at low tide. These channels are in constant movement and continually mapped so that Pilots can get up the river if needed.

Map from the Mersey Estuary website used for Info purposes

A few years ago, I remember Peel talking about investing in generating Electricity from the tidal reach within the Central Docks, have heard nothing since but though it won't generate the same amount of electricity it seems a less of a risk.

This whole exercise to me is Rotherham trying to prove that he has ideas. Given that the Metro Mayor is a new invention and people are still lukewarm to the City Region concept (particularly in North Sefton, West Wirral and St Helens) that he invests his time and public money in infrastructure and cultural projects which bind the region together and given it some homogeneity.

Examples being:

1. A public walk across the new bridge which doesn't just link Halton but also the West and Eastern banks of the region, before it opens as the first of a series of initiatives to sell the LCR.
2. Invests in a project to link the airport with the regional transport network so that people from all parts of the City Region can utilise the LJL when needed. This project could be a heavy rail link to the Merseyrail network or a shuttle train to Lime Street or light rail/Tram between South Parkway and the airport.
3. Centralises Marketing and Tourism for the whole LCR. i.e. maps of places of interest in Liverpool City Centre should also show Birkenhead Town Centre places of interest. Currently tourists going to Liverpool often ask me when I'm in town what is over the water.
4. Seriously looks at the cost and revenue models of crossing the Mersey to see whether he can eliminate tolls like the Welsh and Scottish Assemblies who have linked them to restricting trade and potential crossings which bring the LCR closer together.

Rotherham doesn't seem to have done anything of note and has been overshadowered by Burnham down the road or Anderson on his patch. Generating power from waterflows to me is better put further down the line when technologies can be found that don't hinder the ecology of the river and its surroundings. I note in Canada they are looking at generating electricity by placing generators on riverbeds.

Davey Bada$$ said:

Aesthetics don't come into it really. We've got wind farms on the landscape and any views from New Brighton are of active industrial/docklands/Seaforth.

If red cranes and turbines aren't detracting of the natural beauty of the north Liverpool/Wirral coast, I can't see a barage detracting.

The environmental concerns of course need to be considered, but we live in a cancerous environment presently, and global warming from carbon is destroying the planet. That needs addressing, even if a few habitats are affected (nature adapts anyway).

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Nobody is denying the need to move forward with sustainable energy - but large tidal barrages of this nature are not the way forward, which is why they are not more popular, and are, in fact, being dismantled. De Gaul, was supposed to have said, on the completion of La Rance, “ What have we done?”.

They cause serious and permanent environmental impact, and I’d very much disagree about the importance of ‘aesthetics’, which are are of great importance in the lives of many. Ignoring aesthetic value and quality of life issues leaves us not only with a degraded environment, but with less soul.

New technologies need to be developed such as those Bogeyana mentions above. The Severn barrage proposal was abandoned fairly recently for very good reasons, which still stand in the case of any proposed Mersey barrage.

In the meantime how about taking action to ban or tax heavily, over-large & gas guzzling vehicles in city centres? Higher taxation on flying? Compulsory solar panels and other green technologies on all new builds going forward? A few suggestions for a start.

Funding for improved less damaging technologies must be a priority.

Yes, it is so dispiriting that this silly idea is even under consideration. Perhaps they even know it is a non-starter but, as Roma suggests, it is being promoted for cynical political reasons. Dreadful stuff anyway.