Looking back on visions for The Wash - including airport and city port - as former planner says it's important to air big ideas

As fresh plans have been put forward to develop The Wash, a former planning officer has shared some of the previous proposals - including an airport.

Roger Smith has collated a file of some of the various schemes which had been put forward over the years after it was announced that a road could be linking Norfolk and Lincolnshire under the latest bid.

Last week Centre Port announced its £2billion bid to build an 11-mile hydro electric dam which would include a deep sea port, flood defence and dual carriageway between Wainfleet and Hunstanton.

The plans have received a mixed reaction with support from businesses but wildlife campaigners fear the effect on the eco-system.

Mr Smith, who is formerly the head of planning at South Holland District Council, has been compiling the file of newspaper and magazine clippings from the 1960s.

He said: “It is interesting as The Wash sits there as a challenge to people who have lots of money to invest.

“I think it is important that big ideas like this get to be aired in public but there are so many issues that have got to be really thoroughly investigated.

“It is not just the cost of building it, it is the cost to individual landowners, who must be affected, to the environmental cost as it is something that has to be balanced.”

Building a dam and a road across The Wash is nothing new with ideas being mooted in the 1700s and 1800s, in according to a feature compiled by Geographical Magazine in its April 1965 edition.

Engineer Sir John Rennie proposed in 1839 to reclaim 150,000 acres but nearly 100 years later the discussions for The Wash continued.

The magazine went onto share that in 1937 Dutch engineer Ir Dr J F Schoenfeld, was asked by the Daily Telegraph to look at The Wash following floods.

The magazine reported: “Dr Schoenfeld referred first to the idea of building a dam across The Wash from Hunstanton to north of Butterwick, a notion of the thirties. He dismissed this idea as impracticable because of the great depth of channels on this line.

“The scheme he favoured took the line of the dam back some four to five miles.”

In 1966 architect Harry Teggin wrote an essay in The Listener about building a city on The Wash.

He had put forward a suggestion of reclaiming land from The Wash to build a ‘city region’ due to rising populations in the south.

Mr Teggin wrote in The Listener: “I am suggesting what I will call for the moment a partial ‘barrage’ in the form of a new city port. This port would also form part of the residential area for the city itself, which would have a total population of around 750,000.

“The port section of the development would be across the sea end of the Boston Deeps on the north side and take roughly the form of a horseshoe. This would allow ships of up to 120,000 tons to enter down the Lynn Deeps and turn into the shelter of the port away from the hazard of the north-easterly winds.

“What therefore we could create is a port and a city in the present tidal area of The Wash without the expense of compulsory purchase of existing land. At the same time we could begin to reclaim the 50,000 acres, which the Hydraulics Research Station tells me, is the feasible limit of reclamation of useful agricultural land. Together with this it would also be possible to form a freshwater reservoir or two reservoirs which could provide up to 500,000,000 gallons daily to the south-east.”

In 1968 a London engineer Sir Owen Williams put forward an idea to build an international airport on The Wash.

In an article published in the Boston Standard, Sir Owen said that the airport would not be an alternative to Stansted but it was essential for a central airport due to the redeployment of industry.

He stated that the wash would be an ‘ideal site’ and that it would be linked to London, Midlands and Manchester by roads.

The runways would have been more than 100,000 acres and it would be raised 30 feet above ground level.

Sir Owen said in the article: “In the near future it is evident that we must have one big airport capable of taking all the traffic with scope for expansion as the volume grows.

“A barrier would be built across the mouth of The Wash and then after drainage the area -between 100,000 and 150,000 acres - would be filled in. Canals would be constructed to take existing sea traffic to the ports of the wash.”

A man made island was built in the 1970s as part of government feasibility study to create a freshwater reservoir. But the plan was shelved due to costs.

Mr Smith’s file also contains another Boston Standard clipping from 2008 for a tidal barrage at the mouth of the wash to protect agricultural land from flooding.

Under this scheme a barrier of sand, sandbags, concrete and steel would run from Hunstanton to Skegness to protect 500,00 homes and 3000,000 hectares of land.

It seems that over the years there have been many plans for reclaiming The Wash which not moved forward.

But with the threat of rising sea levels due to climate change is this something we need to look again at?

We did ask the Department for Food Environment and Rural Affairs if they have a plan for protecting this area.

They pointed us to a press release which mentions the Boston Tidal Barrier but nothing for South Holland.

We also contacted the Environment Agency for the a comment about if there is a plan to protect this area - which creates much of the nation’s food.

An Environment Agency spokesman said: “Protecting people and communities is the Environment Agency’s top priority.

“We are one of a number of organisations asking Port Evo to clarify how the port’s development could affect flood-risk and biodiversity, and they plan on adapting to a changing climate.

“We look forward to receiving more detail on the proposals.”