A proposed barrage across the Strangford Narrows, making Strangford Lough into a freshwater lake, and an atomic power plant and airport on the reclaimed land were included in the astonishing 1959 plan to dam the Lough revealed under the recent declassification of old Northern Ireland Government documents held in PRONI, the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.
The plan put forward by the County Surveyor CA Craig was approved by the then North Down Rural District Council and submitted to Stormont, and as reported by The Belfast Telegraph, it invoked much opposition from the Government Chief Whip and future Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Brian Faulkner. He privately voiced his concerns to Lord Glentoran, Minister of Commerce. He wrote: "I do not like the idea of the suggested barrage, but have been careful not to express my views."
The following month, however, Mr Faulkner went public with his opposition to the proposed plans, citing cost and spoiling tourism as reasons.
Mr Craig was responsible for improving transport links between the Ards Peninsula and southeast County Down and having dismissed the idea of a vehicular ferry between Strangford village on the west of the Narrows and Portaferry on the east, the other two options were a bridge (deemed too expensive) and the 'Barrage.'
With lock and floodgates, the barrage would create about 5000 acres of dry land and lower the level of the Lough by about half.
The proposed location favoured by the Surveyor was the northern side of Strangford village on the west side of the Narrows at the mouth of the Lough.
He believed that a 44 feet-wide embankment would cost approximately £400,000 – the equivalent of £7.9 million today. Moreover, the total cost of the scheme could be as high as £750,000 – £14.8 million today.
The Surveyor predicted that the scheme would create around 5,000 acres of new land by maintaining the Lough at about half its natural level and making the Lough more attractive to tourists by removing its mud flats, and envisaged Strangford becoming a better saltwater port without the dangerous tides.
He also suggested that it would be beneficial for heavy industry to move into the area if the Lough provided sufficient fresh water.
He said: "A large factory or atomic power station in the Ards peninsula, for example, might draw fresh water from the lough and discharge waste to the open sea."
The plan would also involve the building of a new airport on the newly created land at the top of the Ards peninsula, just south of Newtownards.
Although Mr Craig believed "these benefits should ensure widespread support", he admitted the possibility that "such an extensive scheme would meet with determined opposition".
And opposition there was, though private at first.
Farmers were also critical of the plans, arguing that the lack of saltwater in the Lough would severely limit crop growth and without the sea cleansing the Lough each day, sewage from towns along the shore would turn it into a "vast cesspool" which would be "utterly repulsive".
Learning of the dire environmental implications, Mr Craig appeared to be willing to the barrage scheme.
By October 1959, the issue had been discussed by both the Cabinet at Stormont and a meeting of senior civil servants, which concluded that specialist advice was required on several aspects of the proposed plans.
A minute of the meeting revealed that even in the unlikely event that the Lough eventually became a freshwater lake, "there was no demand in this area for industrial or domestic water supplies".
The barrage scheme ultimately never came to fruition, but it is reported that there were various references in the file over the next few years to both Craig's earlier propositions of implementing a bridge or ferry service, with a Stormont memo stating that a ferry was the "only practicable short-term answer".
In 1969, Down County Council began operation of a publicly-subsidised ferry between Strangford and Portaferry, a service which operates to this day.
