History of the Severn Barrage

Earlier schemes

The earliest scheme put forward was by Thomas Fulljames in 1849. He was an architect and the county surveyor for Gloucestershire and his proposed barrage had a span of just over a mile from Beachley to Aust (which is now the site of the first Severn Bridge).

His proposal came before there was commercial electricity production and included for a large shipping harbour in the Severn Estuary as well as road and railway transport and the presently topical flood protection.

Other proposals followed. These have likewise been consigned to the pages of history.

There was always a reason for shelving these proposals. In the 1980s it was because oil was so cheap that the investment could not be justified. Moving into the 2000s when it appeared that global warming had radically altered the public perception of environmental damage as well as soaring oil, gas and energy costs more generally, there was a push to look at other technologies.

The study at this time built upon past studies and focused on a variety of tidal range technologies including barrages and lagoons, and innovative designs such as a tidal fence and a tidal reef in the Severn Estuary. The final report in 2010 appeared to favour the larger barrage albeit left the door open to the incremental approach to harnessing the power in the Severn Estuary. On the next steps for Severn tidal power it said, ‘In the light of the findings of the feasibility study the Government does not see a strategic case to bring forward a Severn tidal power project in the immediate
term. However it recognises that factors which will determine the feasibility of a project could change over time.’

A barrage subsequently put forward by Hafren Power was considered by the House of Commons’ Energy and Climate Change Committee in 2013 but was turned down because of a lack of independently verified evidence on the economic, environmental and technological viability of the project. This initiative was not taken further.

Why now?

In the eight years since the last attempt, there have been significant changes.

The Great Western Power Barrage provides the solution to present day concerns by providing:

• 10% of the UK’s electricity supply need as base-load electricity and so reducing its dependence on more expensive nuclear power and on importing energy from sources not under its control.

• the upper estuary embracing Cardiff, Newport, Bristol as well as the Somerset and Gwent levels with effective protection against flooding during high tides and from the rising sea levels predicted by climate change.

Whilst there were and still are some challenging environmental effects from constructing such a barrage, present-day circumstances are different and the main ones identified in the past can be mitigated and offset by significant improvements to reverse the damage from the earlier Industrial Revolution. Providing environmental benefits fits with the aims of the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs’ (Defra) present public consultation where they are wanting new infrastucture projects in England to be “nature positive”. In other words, they want new developments to create more nature and biodiversity in their area and compensate for any losses..