The city could end up a seaside town and nearby Spalding an island unless a tidal barrier is built across the Wash.

That is the stark warning from Cambridgeshire developers, The Wash Tidal Barrier Corporation, who claim sea level rise and climate change are major threats to The Wash coast and Fenland environment.

They say sea level is predicted to rise by at least one metre by 2100 and sea temperatures, already 1°C higher, are increasing by 0.4°C each decade.

The corporation wants to build a

£2 billion defence barrier stretching from Skegness to Hunstanton to protect against rising sea levels.

The company also claim the nine-metre tall and 11-mile long barrier would protect up to half a million people and 300,000 hectares of land, boost flood defences for low-lying areas of the Fens, allow parts of The Wash to be reclaimed for growing food and enable the tides to be harnessed to generate electricity.

However, wildlife groups across the region have said the barrier would destroy important wildlife habitats.

Regional director of the RSPB Richard Powell said: "This scheme should be dismissed as a non-starter. The Wash supports a phenomenal amount of wildlife and is the most important estuary for birds in the UK. To consider damaging it in this way beggars belief.

"Birds are one part of the equation, but there's a multi-million pound wildlife watching and tourism industry that exists around The Wash. Damaging the wildlife would surely damage this, too."

Founder of the private firm behind the project, Dr Peter Dawe said if the height of the current sea defences is not raised, then the sea will breach the them.

He said that if that happened any land contaminated by salt water will take three or more years and tons of chemicals to return to full productivity, and areas of Fen below sea level may never be drained again.

The belief is that eventually, all the Fen area from Cambridge to Skegness and beyond will become tidal mudflats.

He said: "The whole basis of the barrier is to conserve, not to destroy.

"If we don't build the barrier, the sea level in the Wash will rise and rise and all those mudbanks will disappear and we'll just have open sea.

"The Wash and surrounding area is fundamentally a man-made environment, resulting from the building of extensive coastal defences and mechanical draining of marsh and Fen.

"However, it is important for a wide range of birds, animals and plants.

"Climate change, sea level and the current 'managed retreat' policy for sea defences put most of these habitats at risk. The barrier gives the opportunity to protect, relocate and improve these important biodiversity habitats and indeed create new ecosystems to host species displaced by climate change."

There are five phases to the project, which include raising the money, getting permission from the Government, and constructing the barrier, all with a completion date of April 2012.

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