Wales will suffer if lagoon project sinks

THERE is strong speculation that an announcement on the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon is imminent.

This will have reverberations far beyond Wales.

Here there will be dismay in many quarters if the project does not get the green light despite an independent review’s emphatic recommendation that it becomes reality.

Champions of the project will feel personal sadness if, after years of advocacy, it is clear that the lagoon will not become part of the Swansea landscape.

Others will worry about the message sent out to the rest of the world. The twists and turns of this story have been tracked in exhaustive detail; the patience of investors has been tested, and there will be wariness about future big projects in Wales if this is laid to rest.

Then-Chancellor George Osborne stoked excitement about the proposals when his 2014 Autumn Statement described how it “could become the first tidal lagoon project in the world”.

It would have been a disappointment if the Government had quietly withdrawn support, but former Energy Minister Charles Hendry was commissioned to review the project. The enthusiasm with which he backed the creation of a “pathfinder” lagoon in January 2017 appeared to give ministers the political cover they needed to negotiate a price for the electricity it would produce.

Jubilation has turned to bafflement and anxiety in the many months since then. The failure of the Government to respond to the review left the project’s backers in limbo.

An offer to invest £200m demonstrated the determination of the Welsh Government to be seen to support the lagoon. Welsh ministers will understand that the nation will suffer a public relations blow if the project sinks.

Wales has been presented as a nation with great natural resources and a skilled workforce that wants to participate in exciting innovation projects, plus a government that will work to unlock investment. But the cancellation of the long-promised Great Western Railway electrification to Swansea and the protracted nature of the lagoon debacle puts Wales at risk of a double-whammy of bad publicity.

No government can afford to squander taxpayers’ cash if it is convinced a project is truly bad value for money, but if hopes to make Wales a centre for renewable energy fizzle out this will be seen as a sorry saga in which political leadership was absent for too long.