A group set up in support of the barrage proposal are making a host of misleading and exaggerated claims. They repeat the spurious claims from developers that a barrage is designed to provide flood defence and the amazing idea that the turbines would be so benign that not only can salmon pass through unharmed but also that a man can too!

Research has shown that up to 15 % of small salmon “smoults” returning to the sea are killed by these sort of turbines. What chance would adult breeding salmon have as they are swept up and down the estuary by the tides, having to face the grinding turbines more than once.

If their claims are true, then send me through the turbines! Let’s see if the whirring blades of high pressure turbines will leave me alive let alone unscathed. I’ll see you on the other side.

Barrages are not “green energy” and the claims for them continue to be exaggerated whilst ignoring scientific research from around the world.

Those backing the ill-conceived Severn barrage are in for a shock when they find they are not the leaders in tidal power technology. The Severn Tidal Power Group, the group of developers and engineers pushing for a barrage are trumpeting how they are pioneering the development of tidal power whilst dragging the same old antiquated schemes to the table. Mean while, Canada is forging ahead. Experience has shown the Canadian Governmant that tidal barrages just don’t work in silt laden estuaries and the environmental destruction and increased flooding is just too high a price to pay for so called ‘green energy’. STPG have had a march stolen on them by the Bristol based company, Marine Current Turbines. They have been steadily developing and proving cutting edge technology which has now been adopted by the Canadians for the Bay of Fundy. We should learn from this and demand that our estuary, river and adjoining country side be spared from the greed of the developers, spared from environmental disaster and our countryside and houses be spared from increased flooding. Tidal stream turbines are the solution to the question of tidal power from the Severn a barrage is not.