Support for the proposed Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon continues to grow with over 1000 people having signed up to become members of Active Supporters Groups. The Groups are chaired by Ian Isaac, Tony Cuff, Chris Kelly and Alan Glass.
Ian Isaac, Chief Executive of NSA Afan explains why he has chosen to support plans for the lagoon:
“The UK energy market is in the headlines every day. Rising energy prices, security of supply and the need to produce clean energy is driving us all to consider how energy is delivered to our homes.
“Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon will be the first of its kind in the world and will make a statement for vision of future Welsh industry. Importantly, it will be an innovative approach to tackling high levels of unemployment in the area.
“As a not for profit community regeneration organisation, we are committed to tackling poverty and economic inactivity in the community of Sandfields and Aberavon located on the shores of Swansea Bay. Our area of operation includes Neath Port Talbot and the Swansea Bay area. The community has for many generations been dependant on the heavy industries of coal mines, steel works, and chemical plants. Their decline over the past 30 years and reductions in manpower is associated with the decline in employment opportunities added to by the recent austerity in the economic climate which makes replacement jobs difficult to establish.
“As a charity, we fully support clean energy technologies such as solar panels and hydro power; in fact, we actively promote energy efficiency and help households save energy by encouraging the adopting of a range of energy efficiency measures.
“We are committed to tackling fuel poverty which affects over 25% of the households in the Bay area. With energy prices rising year on year that figure can only increase with time. A person is deemed to be affected by fuel poverty if they spend more than 10% of their income on energy consumption.
“We hope that Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon will help to tackle fuel poverty by providing reduced tariffs to over 120,000 homes in the area. It will create jobs in its development and construction phase. It will also provide a good number of permanent jobs and will attract employment from spin offs in terms of tourism, science, reintroducing oyster beds, sport events and leisure.
“At NSA Afan, we are absolutely committed to helping this vision become reality. We’ve even put our money where our mouth is and have taken advantage of the community share offer and invested our own money as we are so determined to see this important project to get the go-ahead. ”
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Press release, January 17, 2014; Image: tidallagoonswanseabay