Swansea Bay could soon boast a tidal lagoon featuring an international watersport centre and oyster hatchery as part of radical redevelopment plans.
London 2012 Olympic Park designer LDA Design has released its masterplan for Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon, featuring the world’s first, man-made energy-generating lagoon, which would provide clean, renewable power for over 120,000 homes and could be connected to the national grid by 2018.
Inspired by traditional fishing warehouses and boat houses, design of the 4000sq m (43,056sq ft) building for the watersport and hatchery centre has been developed by architects FaulknerBrowns as a key component of the lagoon.
The centre would provide a hub for both recreational and competitive sporting facilities, alongside sustainably focussed research and development of various marine industries.
It will include operational and maintenance facilities, boat storage and wet changing areas, a gateway facility, bio-reactor greenhouse facility and a hatchery.
Mike Hall of FaulknerBrowns says: “The project is a great opportunity to harness the infrastructure of green energy production for the social benefits of recreational watersports activities.”
The dedicated hatchery will house a fully serviced aquaculture system that can support the development and hatchery of oysters and lobsters through an applied seawater circulation system of tanks and hives.
“The watersport centre will be capable of hosting national and international events and we hope this will encourage people to participate in sport and make use of the facilities that will be provided,” says Alex Herbert, head of planning for Tidal Lagoon Power, the firm behind the energy plan for a site close to Swansea Docks.
“We have given particular attention to Paralympic facilities as one of the key attractions of the lagoon is the fully enclosed body of marine water as this enables people of all abilities to train safely.”
Because of the size of its energy-generating potential, the overall £756m Swansea tidal lagoon proposal – which would see a six-mile-long U-shaped seawall run from Swansea docks – will ultimately need government-backing if it is to meet plans of completion by 2017.
