Islanders will now have the chance to comment on a much-criticised plan to see if there is viable oil to drill for at Arreton.
UK Oil and Gas (UKOG) has submitted a planning application to see whether it would be viable to drill for oil in the future, as previously reported by Island Echo.
The trial would last 3 years.
Due to COVID-19, the Isle of Wight Council’s planning department were unable to erect site notices and could not make a lawful decision on the application because not all statutory requirements were met.
Now, however, with lockdown restrictions easing, notices will start to be put up again for major applications.
Being included in this week’s planning list, an application (20/00513/FUL) for the construction, operation and decommissioning of exploratory oil drilling boreholes in Arreton will start its 3-week consultation period, accepting comments from the public.
However, the controversial decision to drill for oil on the Island has been met with mixed reactions — but mainly backlash from Islanders who want to keep the Island safe from the production of oil and gas, especially as the Isle of Wight Council declared a climate emergency.
The pressure group Frack-Free Isle of Wight fears pollution of the Eastern Yar and other water sources if oil drilling was to go ahead.
In a meeting last December, hosted by the Green Party, spokesperson Vix Lowthion said the drilling would be catastrophic for the Island and encouraged people to find out what was going on.
UKOG has stressed it is not applying to ‘frack’ on the Island and will leave no impact on the Island if the drill sites are not promising, or commercially viable.
Speaking at the community consultation event in December, chief executive of UKOG, Stephen Sanderson, said:
“The whole reason we need to drill the well is to do a flow test.
“We can use it to determine how much oil comes out of the ground in a day, for example, and then we can decide whether to go ahead.
“Why would we put money into a hole in the ground when we do not know what we may get out?”
Island Roads, as a statutory consulting body, has already recommended the application for refusal on 7 grounds — including points about insufficient information about drainage, HGV trailer and temporary site access, the fact that vehicles may be stopping on the busy Newport Road waiting to get into the site and an inadequate turning area for HGVs entering and leaving the site in a ‘safe and satisfactory manner’.
Comments on the application can be made via the council’s planning portal at https://publicaccess.iow.gov.uk/online-applications/simpleSearchResults.do?action=firstPage from Friday 12th June until 24th July.
No point in complaining and showing anti drilling protests. One of many good examples is St. Mary’s Hospital roundabout. Against a high NO from the public the council went ahead anyway. The council will do whatever it’s wants and sod the public.
We don’t require additional oil exploration when the whole oil industry is at the start of a terminal decline.
The Arreton Valley is prime rich agricultural land, which could easily be contaminated by some careless accident. The bore holes used to water the crops could become fouled by oil or the contaminated chemicals they use to ease oil to the surface.
Too late is too late, and a compensation cheque may be welcomed and frittered away by our ‘grabbing’ council, but little use to the future of the Island when a now up and coming industry of UK food production will be needed more than ever due to leaving the EU.
Why replace an up and coming growth industry, for some greedy shareholders and a suss CEO in a KNOWN declining industry.
We are gambling a known income source which will be needed forever, for a UNKNOWN income source, that even IF there is oil there is in a declining industry.
Thus far UKOG have promised the earth on other sites, and produced little.
With additional issues on the Island of getting oil off, should they find enough to make it pay, would require oil to be at a far higher price than it is to make such viable.
In the three years exploration, the oil consumption of the world will be even less than it is now.
Tourists and agriculture are OUR known and certain income streams, and NEITHER go well with smelly, noisy, ugly tankers and machinery, polluting the soil, the air, the peace and the beauty of Arreton valley, and visitors will not take kindly to having their cars squeezed between oil tankers on the ferry to become their first and last impression of their holiday on Wight, just to enrich greedy shareholders, a CEO who has NOT invested himself, and vulture councillors.
This must be stopped before it starts.
Likely won’t find enough to oil the bike chains in the bike shed business there.
Leave it alone, we got are turfs from there. Dont want oil stains on them.
We dunt nead it
me son got one of they
battree power drills
oil finishd fur good soon
But without oil, the drill won’t work because the battery is flat. Also remember that the battery contains nasty chemicals which nature cannot cope with when the battery is disposed of.
We should have a island wide vote on all of the big planning projects rather than letting the council dicide on what we have to put up with
If they think anything of the island and the people that live here they should give the island people the choice via a island wide vote
Like I posted Shanklin res waste of time having a vote of yes or no. Decision already done behind closed doors I reckon. I found the comment by Island Roads hypocritical about refusal on counts that included possible hold ups on the very busy Newport Road. Their input into the St Mary’s Roundabout is a much more hold up,diversions etc., I bet that if they were involved it would be a different situation. Still let’s wait and see.
Go for it. We urgently need to reduce our reliance on imported energy. We should reopen the coal mines.
I hope they aren’t just exploiting black oil here…….?
‘We want to do a flow test to see if its viable’. but I for one don’t want to know if it is viable. I do not want oil exploration on this island. Who owns the land???????
The companys shares are very low, lowest they have been the company is not doing very well in other ventures, so lets hope they can cover the costs should an accident occur and WE are not left with the clean up costs.
guessing you do not know much about oil exploration and production martin or UKOG.
The shares are where they are due to the Riverfort convertible loan facility which has been paid off and the company is now debt free.
They also reduced the operating cost per barrel at Horse Hill oil field near Gatwick to $13 a barrel – Brent is currently $40 a barrel…so just about profitable.
They have just raised £4.2m at 0.2 pence per share To provide funding for and includes….preparations for work at the Loxley Portland gas appraisal well site, if planning approval is granted on 29 June, and follow-up of the Arreton, Isle of Wight planning application.