page_title: Severn Barrage
section_title: Hooker or Shoots Barrage—1987
hierarchical_section_title: Severn Barrage / History / Hooker or Shoots Barrage—1987
caption_attribution_description: English: This image was sent to me by the author (Parsons Brinckerhoff) for web use.
context_page_description: The Severn Barrage is any of a range of ideas for building a barrage from the English coast to the Welsh coast over the Severn tidal estuary. Ideas for damming or barraging the Severn estuary have existed since the 19th century. The building of such a barrage would constitute an engineering project comparable with some of the world's biggest. The purposes of such a project has typically been one, or several of: transport links, flood protection, harbour creation, or tidal power generation. In recent decades it is the latter that has grown to be the primary focus for barrage ideas, and the others are now seen as useful side-effects. Following the Severn Tidal Power Feasibility Study, the British government concluded that there was no strategic case for building a barrage but to continue to investigate emerging technologies.
  In June 2013 the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee published its findings after an eight-month study of the arguments for and against the Barrage. MPs said the case for the barrage was unproven.
context_section_description: This Wimpey Atkins 1984 study was criticised because it did not tackle the issue of silting and in 1987 Arthur Hooker OBE (a former partner of WS Atkins) in conjunction with Parsons Brinckerhoff prepared a revised barrage proposed at English Stones to better tackle this issue.
  Parsons Brinckerhoff further updated their earlier proposal in 2006 and current estimates for this barrage (now known as the "Shoots Barrage") would cost £1.4 to £1.8 billion to build, and generate 2.75 TWh of power per year. At the highest tidal range, it would develop a peak output of 1,050 MW, and 313 MW output on average throughout the year.
  The barrage would be located just below the Second Severn Crossing—i.e. above Cardiff and Bristol on the estuary—and so much smaller locks would be needed for upstream access to Sharpness and Gloucester docks as the large ports of Portbury and Avonmouth would be unaffected.
  Like the STPG proposal, Hooker generates only on the ebb tide. Construction time would be four years. It would be built of rock fill embankment at the coastal sides (more like the proposals for "Tidal Lagoons"), but like the STPG would be sluice caissons and turbines with powerhouse in the middle section.
  In April 2009 the Liberal Democrats produced a report called "A Tidal Solution—The Way Forward" that backed the Shoots Barrage along with a number of additional measures for power generation in the Severn Estuary. In September 2009 the report was adopted by the Lib Dem party conference as official party policy.
caption: Cross section of embankment
exif: {}