Beach would become a terrible mess

FROM time to time there are proposals for a barrage across the Severn estuary, with promises of perpetual high tide and the generation of free electricity from the tides. The reality is very different. One has only to go to Cardiff and look at the barrage the Welsh have put across Tiger Bay. This is a very sorry sight. The tide is neither in nor out, it is kept half-way. Tiger Bay used to be a lively place, with tides and waves. Now it is part-filled with murky water, and there is no sand, just mud-banks and scraggy reeds.If the same were done here, we would never see the sea, it would be so far out that we would only see mud. With no tides to wash over the sand, the beach would become a terrible mess. The pier would stand on muddy banks of reeds. There would be no tide to float the boats, no trips around the bay, no jet-skis or wind-surfing. Without the sea, Weston would soon become moribund, and local businesses would die.The Severn estuary exists only because it is washed by the tides. Dam it up and you convert it first to mud, then wetlands, and finally meadow. In 50 years Weston would be land-locked, a resort marooned in farmland. I retired here recently and I want to live by the sea not in a derelict ghost town. Please, no Severn Barrage, not within my lifetime.MIKE ROGERS - Baker Street, Weston