Think Big and Bold to defend against rising sea levels

The UK is far from alone in its battles against nature.

Sea levels rising are a fact we all have to accept is happening and even if we take drastic measures to reduce our impact on the rising levels we are still facing changes that will take generations to reverse now.

Many areas around the UK and Ireland face substantial impact from rising sea levels including some strategically important locations.

The UK Coast on the Irish Sea is home to multiple sites linked to defence of the nation along with sites that have plaid a role and continue to do so in our Nuclear energy sector.

Sites like BAE in Barrow were the UK Trident submarine replacement will be built.

Her Majesty's Naval Base, Clyde in Scotland were the Trident fleet is based.

Sellafield on the west Cumbria cost that has for decades been home to the UK nuclear reprocessing and storage of materials.

Along with many towns and communities along the cost in the UK, Ireland and the Isle of Man at risk from the rising sea levels forecast to impact the costal areas over the next 27 years.

We are already seeing the impact of rising sea levels around the world and the forces of the sea on our coastal regions.

The risk to infrastructure defensive capabilities and communities over the next 27years will grow with each passing year.

The UK and Ireland need to start to think big and bold to mitigate the risks and put in place defences that are not local in defensive nature but deliver substantial defence against rising sea levels across the entire Irish Sea region.

The construction of sea locks into the Atlantic across the Straits of Moyle to the north between Saint George's Channel to the south, would be massive engineering projects however the creating of an Irish sea lagoon would be the delivered result proving a defence against rising sea levels that would protect massive areas of the coastline of the UK and Ireland along with the entire costal area of the Isle of Man.

The defensive and strategic areas at risk along the coastlines along with the communities rising sea levels put at risk would be defended and protected by the Big and Bold project.

It may sound a far fetched project to enclose behind a sea wall the entire Irish sea with defensive locks into the Atlantic.

However we have the technology and capability to build such defences in the sea.

The Straits of Moyle is approximately 12 miles at its closest points between the two shores with an approximate depth at the deepest point of is 300m

Saint George's Channel is approxamtley 47 miles between the closest points on the two shores with the deepest point 170 metres.

By comparison the Channel Tunnel between the UK and France is 31.4 miles long.

However the building of a sea defence and creating the Irish Sea Lagoon would be a clival engineering project on a scale not seen in the UK for decades.

However the technology and feasibility is proved by projects that have been delivered around the world.

From the islands China is creating and extending in the South China Sea to developments such as Palm Island and the other new land created around Dubai.

We have from a resource point of view plenty of sand and gravel needed to undertake a piece of work like this we also have the equipment available needed to deliver it.

The limiting factor is around such big and bold projects are policy and regulation this needs the governments to unlock the potential and work together to say 'we want to do it, lets make it happen'.

Back in the 70's a bridge across the Humber was a vison.

The Channel Tunnel a pipe dream, Hongkong International airport built on an artificial island was a sketch on a pad in the mid 1970's.

Yet today we have them all build and delivered after the political gear change of the UK governments of the day moving to the Lets make it happen mode.

Now this was in an era of build big and bold and deliver of projects that were on the scale of space programs rather than garden bridges across rivers.

But the UK and Ireland can not ignore the forces of nature these will impact our coastlines and our Infrastructure defence capabilities and communities.

When the tide is lapping at the door it will be to late the need for vison and action now to deliver generational protection from rising seas needs governments in the UK and Ireland to grab the 'Lets make it happen' ethos of the 80's and deliver global scale sea defences that will protect our shore for generations.