Tidal Lagoon Swansea Bay (Plc) has presented the findings of their Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) prior to submitting their application for development consent on 6 December 2013. The application will include the full results of the EIA in an Environmental Statement, and a Consultation Report setting out how input from local people has helped to shape the proposed million tidal lagoon which will see an investment in the region of £750 million.
The results of the EIA were presented at an event held at the Liberty Stadium. All aspects of design and master planning were presented, plus assessment of the scheme’s impacts on landscape/seascape, coastal processes, sediment transport, contamination, marine water quality, navigation, marine transport, fish, marine ecology, terrestrial ecology and coastal birds. Opportunities to minimise such impacts and provide suitable mitigation were put forward by independent consultants working on behalf of Tidal Lagoon Swansea Bay Plc.
Alex Herbert, Head of Planning says:
“It’s been two years since we first began work on the proposed Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon. In that time, we have consulted with more than 200 local stakeholders and over 100 statutory consultees. In July and August, we met 1,050 local people at 19 formal consultation events held in 17 locations around the Bay. To date, almost 2,500 local people have completed formal questionnaires on the lagoon with 86% of them supporting our proposals. A further 157 local people have invested collectively £400,000 in the project via the community share offer. That’s a huge achievement and we are truly delighted with the response to date. In fact, we are told that this level of support is unprecedented for a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) such as ours.”
“We recognise that no major infrastructure project of this scale can be developed without some environmental impact and have sought to minimise that in all aspects of the Project’s design. Work presented for formal consultation in July and August, in the Preliminary Environmental Information Report (PEIR), showed that potential effects during construction, operation and decommissioning phases are limited in magnitude and predominantly contained to Swansea Bay itself. The results of the full EIA provide further detail from the independent experts conducting these assessments, as well as mitigation measures being proposed.”
“This development will lead to the generation of clean electricity for our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, saving over 200,000 tonnes of CO2 per year for its design life of over 100 years. We have to develop alternative means of power generation and we believe Tidal Lagoons are the most viable, cost effective and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional fossil fuel and nuclear electricity production. Indeed, the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee has recognised that tidal lagoons may have the potential to provide a low-risk, low-impact option for long term energy production in the Severn Estuary.”
“The presentation of the results of our Environmental Impact Assessment marks an important step as we move forward to submitting planning on 6 December. We are delighted that so many local people have taken the time to attend today’s event and we look forward to continuing our work on the remaining issues that we need to address before an application is submitted to the Inspectorate.”