MP BOOST FOR SWANSEA TIDAL LAGOON
Local MP’s Tonia Antoniazzi and Carolyn Harris appear confident that the Swansea Tidal Lagoon will still go ahead. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn made a commitment to the project in their manifesto but the Swansea MPs still feel the project could happen.
The election result was a blow to the prospect of the lagoon but neither MP feel that the deal is dead.
Gower MP Tonia Antoniazzi said “It’s has not gone because we will keep fighting for the investment from the UK Government, it’s not gone because I know that the council and the Welsh Assembly still have aspirations that they can deliver it. I just hope with the climate change emergency this is where we need to be moving and hopefully in discussion with the Government and the Welsh office we can make it happen.”
Read Tonia Antoniazzi Interview in Full
The tidal lagoon would be a ‘U’ shaped breakwater, built out from the coast with a bank of hydro turbines within it. The water would fill up and then empty as the tides rise and fall generating electricity on both the incoming and outgoing tides.
In 2015, the project was awarded a Development Consent Order and is primed for construction. It will comprise 16 hydro turbines, a 9.5km breakwater wall, generating electricity for 155,000 homes for the next 120 years.
It would be the first such project in the world. Working closely with the Swansea university, it could become the World leader in this new technology.
Swansea East MP, Carolyn Harris told us “I think Swansea council have ambitious plans for the city and they definitely have got a plan for the Lagoon. I have, actually this week written to the secretary of state for Wales and asked him to come and speak to the city leaders to come and talk about the city deal and the lagoon. We have got the ambition but we just need the support, not necessarily financial support from the government but certainly support in terms of encouragement that we can grow and we can develop as a city for the 2020s.”
