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Wales Green Party Welcomes Positive Findings of Hendry Review on Swansea Lagoon

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Today the Hendry review on the feasibility of Swansea Bay Tidal lagoon was published, and it was overwhelmingly positive in its recommendations.

Pippa Bartolotti, Wales Green Party Deputy Leader said, “This is a wonderful way to start 2017! The Hendry review backs all our key pollution and carbon reduction demands, but importantly we now need to press the Westminster government to delay no further and allocate the £1.3b funding. This is chickenfeed when compared to the £37b they have already allocated to building the Hinkley C reactor. “

A tidal lagoon is much more cost effective than a nuclear reactor, and infinitely less damaging. The lagoon will produce zero carbon electricity with no radioactive waste forced on future generations, and very small decommissioning costs. Even the decommissioning of North Sea oil and gas is estimated to be costing taxpayers an outrageous £24 billion. Theresa May must now stop dithering and give the green light to this industry fit for the future.“

The Hendry review pointed out that tidal technology would "contribute positively" towards the UK's decarbonisation goals and stated that the potential impact on consumer bills of large scale tidal lagoons appears attractive, particularly when compared to nuclear projects. It also marked the fact that this was a significant economic opportunity for Wales.

Grenville Ham, Deputy Leader of the Wales Greens said, “There are worries which we should all be concerned about. The experts have said that tidal power is exactly what we want, yet the Conservative government appears to have had enough of experts. We could save a lot of time and money by listening to the properly qualified people in the first place.”

The combined output of proposed UK tidal lagoons, at about 12% of UK electricity consumption, will produce almost double the energy as the intended output of Hinkley Point C . The environmental impact will be much less than for a Severn barrage and unlike the Severn barrage, tidal lagoons are replicable at multiple sites around the UK and indeed around the world.

Anthony Slaughter, who contributed to the Hendry review on behalf of the Wales Green Party said, “This is fantastic news for the low carbon industries. Tidal generation is predictable and dependable far into the future and will complement our growing wind and solar resources. Greens welcome the economic regeneration opportunities which will follow this popular development. “


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