UK urged to push ahead with Severn tidal power plant

Just a few years after tidal power plans for the Severn Estuary were scrapped a new report urges the Government to 'act now' to harness its 'huge potential', and create an extra £12blln GVA a year.

Dear reader,

Welcome to an earlier edition of The Raikes Journal than usual.

Regular readers will know we usually send out a single story on a Thursday, sometimes paywalled, sometimes not. With Monday and Friday reserved for full editions, the former always free and the latter usually paywalled in order to make what we do sustainable.

But with a busy day ahead of us tomorrow, and this piece of news from the Western Gateway landing in our laps after it published the report by way of a launch this morning in London, today suddenly felt right for an email edition.

As a nation we don’t always do big projects well, and the backstory of attempts to introduce a tidal power scheme to the Severn Estuary, most recently by a Gloucester-headquartered firm in the late noughties, came to nowt - despite approval from the Government, wildlife groups and just about everyone else.

Today’s launch event was about the Western Gateway trying to force the Government to look again. It does feel like it is only a …