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Cardiff Bay, Cardiff, 167 ha
2 April 2004
)
Image: Steve Round
The site: Cardiff Bay was an area of intertidal
mudflats and channels designated as an SSSI for its nationally
important numbers (over 8,000 birds) of wintering waders and
wildfowl, including dunlin, redshank and curlew. The Bay supported
the highest density of birds in the Severn Estuary, and was
considered by the RSPB as an integral part of the Severn Estuary,
which was proposed as an SPA for its internationally important
wintering wader populations.
The proposed development: In 1989, the Cardiff
Bay Development Corporation, a body set up and supported by the
Welsh Office, proposed a scheme to barrage the bay to create a
lagoon, whilst redeveloping the docklands. This was promoted as a
parliamentary bill.
The objection: The RSPB objected to this
proposal because its development would destroy the Taff/Ely Estuary
SSSI and adversely affect the Severn Estuary pSPA (proposed SPA) by
permanently submerging the intertidal mudflats on which its
wintering and passage bird populations relied. The arguments around
the parliamentary bill centred on whether the project had no
alternatives and whether it could be justified on economic
grounds.
The outcome: In 1993, the Cardiff Bay Barrage
Act was passed by Parliament allowing the development to proceed,
citing overriding economic need, despite an independent economic
report questioning the economic veracity of the project. The
Government funded a 439 ha wetland creation project on the nearby
Gwent Levels in an attempt to compensate for the loss of the
Bay.