Originally Posted by
Waterways
Making the Mersey estuary a "largely" locked in body of deep water has great advantages.
- Dredging costs are then to minimum creating cheaper berthing fees which will expand the port facilities all around the estuary.
- Ships then berth on the river rather than in docks.
- The locked in water can be safely used for leisure purposes.
- The barrage creates a rail/roadway.
The Mersey at low tide is not a nice sight at all. I would look forward to a high body of water. Beaches are accessible on the end of the Wirral peninsular and Crosby and all north. The prom at Wallasey could be a place when water sports and small boats berth on small piers creating an animated water front at Wallasey - which it currently is not.
From info provided on the Depth of the mersey thread it seems the silting around Speke has been aggravated by the training walls in the channel. It was quite unexpected that the sand banks in the bay would effectively move into the river. Change in the flow can be unpredictable. Will the 'basin' fill up with silt or will the sand move back into the bay? - hard to say.
I am not sure that much dredging (relatively) goes on these days as the port operations are focussed so far north. Options that produce a largely self-scouring river bed seem more attractive. Also keeping the alakalinity of the water roughly the same rather than becoming 'fresher' is desirable. It's a clean river with lots of marine life and a delicate balance.
Roads don't seem to be our future. They cost too much on many levels and don't have great capacity. Public Transport, probably Rail, probably is but the existng rail tunnel is in the centre for good reason. It's on the desire line.
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Leisure uses can operate on all states of tide if the river bed is better managed. More fundamentally, it's a rough, tough bit of water and part of the city's character. The sweeps and changes of tide are magnificent. I wouldn't want to see that change.
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