The decision made by the Isle of Wight Council to stop funding the tidal energy project near St Catherine’s is to be looked at again.
Plans for the tidal energy centre have been mooted since 2013, when the council got involved as part of plans to boost the Isle of Wight economy and bring up to 600 jobs to the Solent region.
Earlier this month the council’s cabinet decided, due to the state of its finances because the COVID-19 pandemic, it would not loan a further £244,000 in the Perpetuus Tidal Energy Centre (PTEC), which would allow the centre to receive funding from the European Union.
Now that decision has been ‘called in’ to be looked at by the council’s scrutiny committee.
The Isle of Wight Council did loan £1 million at the start of the project to pump prime it, which Councillor Dave Stewart, leader of the council, said was to help provide jobs and support the green agenda.
Missing out on funding and the expiry of licences has meant the project has been delayed and was the cause of the council holding back further investment.
Speaking at the cabinet meeting, Cllr Wayne Whittle, member for regeneration, said:
“For us to put funding of this magnitude into something at this stage of the game, with Covid going on, is a big ask.
Article continues below this advertisement “We only loaned that £1 million in order to create jobs and enable green technologies to thrive on the Island.”
Cabinet also decided to surrender up to two-thirds of its shares in the project which could be sold on for further investment and altered the loan-term agreement for the original investment, extending it by five years.
Now the corporate scrutiny committee, which partially agreed with the steps, have called in the decision for the loan term to be altered as it was not consulted on it.
A statement supporting the call-in says:
“We have become aware of additional information and a further recommendation to cabinet that was not presented to the committee.
“We believe if the committee had been given this additional information, it could have affected its decision.
“We also feel by reading information now available the council is in danger of judicial review.”
The call-in gives the committee the opportunity to fully scrutinise the additional recommendation to ‘overcome any public concerns’ with the decision.
Members of the corporate scrutiny committee bringing forward the call-in are Cllrs Michael Lilley, Debbie Andre, Andrew Garratt and the new chair, Richard Hollis.
A special meeting of the committee is being held today (Monday) to discuss the matter in private.
PTEC’s offshore site will lie around 2.5km (1.3 nautical miles) south of St Catherine’s Point, Isle of Wight, and could generate electricity to power more than 15,000 homes.
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There are about 70,000 dwellings on the island and a project like this can be scaled up – is there resistance to this clean and limitless energy supply by vested interests that do not like the idea that islanders will not be getting electricity from the regular suppliers who generate electric from the existing fossil fueled power stations?
The problem is simple, the project is uneconomic, the numbers don’t stack up and the whole thing is light on the ecological impact. The site is second/ third rate. Much better to put efforts in elsewhere…. to make it work it needs £305 Mw/h for its electricity, this compares to a UK average of around £45 MW/h….. if we are looking for cheaper energy from the marine environment we should focus on estuary and lagoon, not open water and in this instance at above average depths…
Do you mean, do they own shares in fossil fuel companies? Wow, realist you are really on to something big there!!! Maybe tell David Icke!!!
I don’t think on this scale those companies would even bat an eyelid.
I should think so too. The council should never have been involved in it. The money they have wasted on this daft scheme could have been better used to fund better services for the residents of the Island.
I think that we could really lead the way with this technology and should invest in this as it will create jobs and a cleaner future for all of us. Surely as an Island we could be an example to the whole of Britain and stop being slaves to oil, if only we could believe in the vision as other countries are doing
You sound credible and then you mention asylum seekers. Oh yes, SO MANY here… Coming over here, taking our…..AVOIDING WARS…. You cretin.