Shrewsbury River Severn weir power plan wins funding

Major plans to generate power from the weir in Shrewsbury have been given a boost after securing Government funding, it was revealed today.

Transition Town Shrewsbury has been awarded £42,725 through the Government's Local Energy Assessment Fund which will now allow the

Shrewsbury Hydro Group to finalise plans for a hydro scheme at Castlefields Weir in the town. A turbine installed on the River Severn will generate electricity.

The project will be put on show for public consultation at the end of next month and, if approved, could generate almost two million kilowatt hours of electricity every year – enough to power 350 homes.

After results from the public consultation are collated a planning application will be submitted to Shropshire Council.

It is not known exactly how much the scheme will cost but it could eventually total more than £2 million.

In January Shrewsbury Town Council revealed it had set aside about £100,000 from its reserves for 2012/13 to help the hydro electric group.

And, in December, the group secured £15,000 through the Energy Share Launch Fund of British Gas, allowing a range of surveys to be carried out for planning purposes.

The new funding will allow final detailed designs and drawings of all aspects of the scheme to be prepared and these will be incorporated into scale models of the site.

A public exhibition will then be held in Castlefields, Underdale and in the town centre to collect people's views.

Mark Scutt, energy coordinator at Transition Town Shrewsbury, said: "The momentum is clearly there from local people to try and do something and we're delighted to secure this funding.

"It means we can now pay to have all the civil and mechanical drawings done in detail and fit the scheme together like a jigsaw before we release it to the public by the end of March."