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I watched your youtube entry about the barrage. I can't believe this is getting serious consideration. Sure, I agree we should be tapping the immense power of the tide in the Severn estuary and the
Bristol channel, but this isn't the top option. In fact, it's not an option at all. After the rains of July 20th, everyone in the Severn Valley was affected by flooding. I've heard it said that the
barrage would be a flood defence. That's totally irrational. How much worse would those floods have been of the outflow of water was slowed? Gloucester came within about 2 inches of water of a
catastrophic loss of power. Even with the sluices fully open,the barrage would have made things a lot worse. And I am also amazed at the lack of local tidal knowledge in this scheme. It might be able
to generate a lot of power, but it will do so only on the outgoing tide. The peculiarities of local tides will put this at off peak times nearly all the time, not at the peak times when we need it.
It seems that the proposal has been largely modelled on the La Rance barrage near St Malo. That's inappropriate. La Rance flows out of a gorge, and is a low silt environment, yet silting has caused
problems . A much more similar environment would be the project in the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia. The barrage there has caused such a bad silt problem that it has to be removed completely. The Severn
Estuary is a similarly high silt environment. I firmly believe that a barrage will silt up to the point that it will be non-functional in pretty short order. Tidal lagoons will generate power on both
incoming and outgoing tides, over a longer period, and will have no silting issues. Please look into these questions, because I won't be voting for any party that puts my family at risk in any way.
The barrage is a stupid idea.