The council continued discussions last week on how to take Mersey Tidal Power – which has the potential to become the world’s largest tidal scheme – from concept level to the first stage of the formal development process.
Liverpool’s Mayor Steve Rotheram revealed advanced proposals to build the tidal scheme on the banks of the River Mersey earlier this month. A barrage between the Wirral and Liverpool is the preferred option for the project.
The barrage will also act partially as a flood defence for some areas of the city and create a pedestrian and cycling link between the Wirral and Liverpool.
“I’m convinced that there’s never been a better time for us to put forward a project of this magnitude,” Rotheram said at a meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority last Friday (15 March).
At the meeting councillors agreed to approve the submission of a scoping opinion for the barrage scheme to the Planning Inspectorate for England in the third quarter of this year.
Submitting a scoping opinion is the first step towards preparing a Development Control Order (DCO) submission – a process which typically takes two to three years.
Councillors also agreed to approve the continuation of phase four development activity – including consenting, engineering and commercial activity – on Mersey Tidal at last week’s meeting.
Over the last three years, the authority has undertaken early technical work to develop the potential scope of the scheme. The phase four activity will move the scheme on from the conceptual work to an outline scheme definition and support information for the consenting and permitting process for the major project.
A report presented to the authority at the meeting recommended that lagoon scheme options should not be progressed further at this time.
It said that a barrage “is the shortest structure that can be built (less material and cost) for a large basin size using our natural assets, the Mersey estuary basin, as the effective lagoon.”
It also said that a barrage offered potential flood mitigation, could be used as a pedestrian and cycle link between Liverpool and Wirral, and would avoid the large-scale import of materials to create a lagoon structure.
Speaking at the meeting councillor David Barnes said: “The project has progressed steadily and appropriately in exploring how a tidal range scheme – which is a tried and tested technology – can best be deployed in the Mersey Estuary. It’s proposed to focus on how that can best be done as a barrage scheme.”
“This is the leading UK tidal range project, and we must continue to push forward to secure government funding and consenting of such a high profile scheme.”
Barnes said that recent meetings with the government had been “encouraging” and “supporting”, and that the project was making progress “step by step”.
However, Rotheram said that the project will still be difficult to “get over the line” and hinted that a change of political leadership would help it along.
“What we are absolutely convinced with and by is that if there was a change of government this would be more likely to be one of those projects that would be able to attract investment, not just from a national government and a national infrastructure bank but also from external investors, because we will need to have partners to build this,” he told the meeting.
Mersey Tidal Power is among eight tidal rang schemes proposed for the west coast of the UK. GE's sister title NCE lists these schemes as Swansea Bay Lagoon, Wyre Barrage, Mostyn Docks, Severn Barrage, West Somerset Lagoon, North Wales Lagoon and Morecambe Bay and Duddon Estuary Barrage.
