Cardiff Bay’s BARRAGE

A giant engineering project creates a 500 acre freshwater lake.

Barrage, Cardiff Bay, text

The Cardiff Bay Barrage lies across the mouth of Cardiff Bay and was built at a cost of £220m to convert the mudflats

on one side still a muddy bay

into a 200-hectare freshwater lake.

on the other side of the barrage, now

a fresh water lake

The Barrage is situated between Queen Alexandra Dock

and Penarth Head

Penarth Head

Customs House, 1865

and built in the 1990s, it was one of the biggest largest civil engineering projects in Europe.

Designed to keep the sea out and provide a tourist-attracting fresh water lake and marina,

the barrage was created to fix the ’problem’ of the bay’s huge tidal range, grabbing the output of the River Taff and River Ely to create a 2km² (500 acre) freshwater lake.

Being part of the Bristol Channel - which boasts the second largest tidal range in the world - meant that for half the day the bay would be bereft of water, exposing a large vista of unappealing mudflats.

Against a background of protests from local politicians, local residents and environmental groups, construction started in 1994.

The project was completed in 1999 and shortly afterwards the barrage came into effect.

cantilever-bascule bridge

fishpass

route road-train waterbus

by train from Cardiff Bay to Barrage and Penarth marina; back to city centre by waterbus on River Taff

The Cardiff Bay road-train

took us from Mermaid Quay to the barrage, near Penarth.

There the group,

waited for ......

a

This waterbus

brought the group

from

back to