Hey, remember tidal lagoons? It was supposed to be the world’s first tidal lagoon, but years of what looked like ‘ministerial dithering’ on Swansea Bay may now have turned to decisive inaction. So what’s going on? Why isn’t Swansea providing power to 120,000 UK homes right now? One former energy minister thinks climate-denying hard-Brexiteers are to blame. Unearthed – Greenpeace. 

Plans for a North Wales tidal lagoon will help safeguard at least £2 billion worth of property along the coastline, according to flood risk experts Waterco.   Ruthin-based Waterco who have been commissioned by North Wales Tidal Energy, the group leading the project, to carry out a study into the coastal protection benefits of the £7 billion tidal lagoon scheme. According to NWTE Chairman Henry Dixon, the lagoon will not only provide low-carbon electricity for over one million homes but it will also safeguard the homes, businesses, road and rail links along the North Wales coast.

Henry said: “We have always known the proposed lagoon would have coastal protection benefits so we are delighted that Waterco is now on board undertaking this study to quantify those benefits.”

The exact siting of the lagoon will be the subject of detailed investigation and assessment but NWTE’s initial studies suggest it is likely to extend for nearly 20 miles from the Great Orme to the Point of Ayr at Talacre, just inland of the giant Gwynt y Mor windfarm. This section of coastline includes Towyn which was hit by devastating flooding in 1990 and Rhyl which has suffered flooding on many occasions and most recently in 2013. Waterco managing director Peter Jones said: “North Wales’s existing coastal flood defences will have to be strengthened and raised in the face of rising sea levels due to climate change.

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