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Oil Drilling at Home

Category: Environment

Northern Petroleum Plc were awarded the rights to carry out oil drilling operations in two areas off the shores of the Isle of Wight this year.

The area to be evaluated runs along shoreline of the Island on the South West side, along the line of the Military Road and go out into a large triangle in the channel. This covers most of the most commonly surfed area of the Isle of Wight and is in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and a Heritage Coast area.

This is not good news according to stakeholders of the local marine environment, including recreational near shore water users, who say they are disappointed that rights had been awarded to prospect for Oil in the AONB.

The Isle of Wight Surf Club:

“Island Surfers including Surfers Against Sewage, the Isle of Wight Surf Club and Wight Surf History are disappointed to see oil exploration taking place on the Isle of Wight, in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. We hope the strongest possible safeguards are in place to prevent any damage to the environment, beaches and recreational coastlines on the island.

We call all the whole Isle of Wight surfing and beach loving community to be vigilant for any pollution in or damage to the coastal environment, beaches and surf spots arising from this project. It’s vital that the whole community engages with any new consultation processes for associated onshore infrastructure, new or related oil drilling projects. It is within public consultation frameworks that SAS supporters and the wider public can officially voice their concerns."

From our part, we think that it's worrying that in the same Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, we struggle with the acceptance of renewable energy but continue to look to polluting and finite sources of energy such as oil.

The Isle of Wight is well known nationally as being a "time warp" place that's a few years behind the pace of the rest of the country. It's nice to live here but sometimes on important issues we can get left behind a bit. For example, one of our most successful community groups is an anti-wind turbine campaign outfit called thWart, who recently shut down a few wind turbine applications on visual impact grounds - and the fact that they were near to an AONB. When asked by the local paper, they declined to comment on this oil drilling platform planning approval inside an AONB.

Fossil fuels are polluting, finite and expensive whilst renewable energy is sustainable, non-polluting and is responsible for a lot of local jobs on the Island.

In light of that, perhaps it's time for a rethink about what we want the future of this Island to look like. As with all success stories, it's important to embrace change, to try to work with it and make it what we want: To build a sustainable future rather than oppose it. Otherwise what the next generation inherits might be too far behind to put right.