Centre Port

 

One of the loveliest locations on the east coast of England is the Wash, a bay made up of shallow sandbanks and multiple river estuaries. It is a major conservation zone with huge colonies of seabirds, seals and eels. It includes a huge salt marsh, one of the biggest in Europe. This was originally much bigger and extended almost as far as Cambridge; but during the Middle Ages it was drained and turned into farmland. The land around the Wash is very flat and reminds me of my mother's family home in the Netherlands. This means that landmarks such as Ely Cathedral and the King's Lynn silo are major landmarks. Apart from several dredged shipping channels and some coastal flood defences, the area is untouched and natural. Queen Boudica used to live near there, see: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2024/02/one-long-boudica-moment.html. The secret of the Wash's rich wildlife is the complex movement of water and sediment as the rivers mix with the tides and winds. This causes variable temperature and salinity zones essential for some of the shellfish that live there. Now, like everything else sweet and natural in the world, it has to be interfered with. This is an event that fills me with sadness as it reminds me of Presque Isle, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2015/09/presque-isle.html. The government have expressed a wish to build a causeway across the mouth of the Wash, sealing it off forever from the open sea. The life-giving currents and migration routes of seals and eels would be severed. The causeway would carry a road which will shorten the journey from Hunstanton to Skegness from sixty-four miles to eleven miles. This means you'll be able to get from your home to your work cubicle much quicker. Also on the causeway will be a gigantic tidal energy scheme which could power 600,000 homes. Of course regular readers will know this technology is actually obsolete, but the government won't tell us that, see: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2020/08/free-energy-portal.html. It will also have a harbour built on it, hence the name. Centre Port faces much deeper waters so larger ships will be able to dock than those currently using the inland ports of King's Lynn and Boston. This means even more containers of cheap disposable Chinese tat will be able to reach us even faster at an even lower price. This idea has been toyed with since the '60's, but nothing official was decided. Now a company called Port Evo has unveiled formal plans. The 2022 proposal is detailed and includes a two billion pound estimated budget. Source: https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/plans-revealed-for-2bn-tidal-barrage-featuring-container-terminal-flood-defence-and-rail-and-road-links-22-11-2022/. This is still the early stages of the development process and nothing has been decided, but it is worrying that the government are taking this seriously.
See here for more background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2020/02/st-helena-airport-portal.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2021/11/hs2-extension-scrapped.html.