Swansea – Tidal Lagoon Swansea Bay plc has submitted a planning application to Swansea Council to build an international watersport centre.
The application has been submitted following the exclusion of recreational facilities from the Development Consent Order for the energy generating station that was granted by the UK Government on 9 June 2015.
Inspired by traditional fishing warehouses and boathouses, the design of the 4,000m2 building has been developed by Faulkner Browns as an important component of the lagoon masterplan. Faulkner Browns are the architects behind the 2012 Olympics sailing centre in Weymouth and many other award-winning sports facilities.
Designed to complement local industry and heritage, the watersport centre will provide an ‘outdoors’ focussed centre of excellence for both recreational and competitive sporting facilities, complete with boat storage, welfare areas and orientation facilities supporting the iconic visitor centre out on the seawall. Critically, the building will also house operations, maintenance and research facilities supporting TLSB’s commitments to monitor and mitigate the lagoon’s environmental impacts throughout its 120-year life. This includes a lobster and oyster hatchery to support the company’s aim to invigorate these species’ populations in the Bay.
The hatchery will house a fully serviced aquaculture facility with a seawater circulation system of tanks and hives, enhanced by a glass envelope to generate greenhouse conditions for optimised algae growth. The greenhouse structure will harness solar power, generating a clean, low-energy, nutrient supply to the hatchery.
Alex Herbert, Head of Planning for Tidal Lagoon Power said: “The application includes the public realm and other facilities at the western landfall of the recently-consented lagoon. It is identical to the excluded facilities and demonstrates our commitment to providing all the benefits of the scheme as originally consulted upon.”
“The lagoon is an ideal place to host watersports, so we need the onshore facilities to support them. The watersport centre will be capable of hosting local, national and international events and we hope will encourage people to participate in sport using the facilities provided. We have given attention to disabled watersports facilities ensuring access and safe training for everyone.”
“The building is also the obvious place to house our research and monitoring facilities, supporting the commitments we made following the lagoon’s environmental impact assessment. We hope this facility will promote expertise in mariculture, as well as supporting environmental impact assessment work for TLSB and our programme of further UK and international lagoons.”
Mike Hall of Faulkner Brown said: “The project is a unique opportunity to use renewable energy generation infrastructure creatively to secure social benefits for local people in the form of this fantastic recreational watersports facility.”
As the world’s first, man-made, energy-generating lagoon, with 320MW installed capacity averaging 14 hours of generation every day, Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon will provide clean, renewable, reliable and predictable power for over 155,000 homes for over 120 years. It could be connected to the National Grid by 2019.
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FURTHER INFORMATION: www.tidallagoonpower.com, www.tidallagoonswanseabay.com
lisa.jenkins@tidallagoonpower.com, 07908 738763
Tidal Lagoon (Swansea Bay) Plc
Tidal Lagoon (Swansea Bay) plc is a special purpose vehicle company established specifically to construct, own and operate the world’s first tidal lagoon power plant at Swansea Bay. The 320MW installed capacity project, developed by Tidal Lagoon Power Ltd, has a design life of 120 years and a net annual power output of over 500 GWh; enough to meet the annual electricity requirement of over 155,000 homes, or over 90% of homes in the Swansea Bay area.
The company is steered by the UK’s leading experts in major infrastructure design and delivery. Its board is led by Keith Clarke CBE as Non-Executive Chairman, supported by a governance board that includes Bernard Ainsworth OBE and Mike McNicholas. Project delivery will be led by Andrew McNaughton.
In December 2014, the project was named in HM Treasury’s National Infrastructure Plan, the Welsh Government’s Wales National Infrastructure Plan, and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s investment plan. The project’s approach to public consultation was highly commended at last year’s RTPI Cymru Planning Awards, while LDA Design’s masterplan for the lagoon won the President’s Award at the 2014 Landscape Institute Awards. Tidal Lagoon Swansea Bay was named as New Energy Champion at this year’s New Energy & Cleantech Awards.
The project was awarded a Development Consent Order on June 9th 2015. The first phase of negotiations with the Department of Energy & Climate Change on a potential Contract for Difference for the project were announced in the Chancellor’s Budget in March 2015.
Tidal Lagoon Power Ltd
Tidal Lagoon Power is driving a critical change in the UK’s energy mix by developing infrastructure to harness natural power from the rise and fall of the tides. Its first project, the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon, establishes a scalable blueprint for a series of UK tidal lagoons. The company is developing a fleet of six tidal lagoons to meet up to 8% of UK electricity demand. This fleet will exploit the opportunities that tidal lagoons offer for social, economic and environmental transformation, progressing projects that contribute positively in each area.
