Plans to build a highly-controversial barrage across the Severn Estuary were struck a major blow today with a report from MPs concluding it should not go ahead in its current form.
The House of Commons’ Energy and Climate Change Committee (ECCC) said the 11-mile, £25bn project would not be good for the economy or the environment.
Hafren Power’s plans to build the barrage between Lavernock Point near Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, and Brean near Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, have been roundly condemned in Bristol for its likely impact on the city’s economy and the environment.
The Commons’ committee backs that view, concluding that it was “no knight in shining armour for UK renewables”.
The Bristol Port Company, one of the harshest critics of the scheme, welcomed the report.
Chief executive Simon Bird said: “The Select Committee has read through and listened to masses of evidence and come to the only sensible conclusion that the Severn Barrage brings with it unprecedented problems.
"The barrage has been killed off by MPs – again – because it is quite simply a bad idea. The ECCC also said that other ways of harnessing the energy of the Severn must be proactively pursued. We have formed an alliance with RegenSW, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the University of the West of England and together we are vigorously pursuing other technologies that will generate energy from the Severn without unacceptable damage to the environment and with real economic benefits.”
The ECCC spent more than six months gathering information and hearing from experts on the economic and environmental impacts of a Severn Barrage.
