The Isle of Wight Council’s cabinet member of the Environment, Jonathan Bacon, has said that the new proposed planning strategy for the Isle of Wight will help fight fracking locally after ‘worrying’ announcements were made by the Government last week.
Amid rumblings that the decision over the planning strategy should be put off, Jonathan has said that any delay to the Island Plan will be an inhibitor to addressing the threat of fracking. It comes after the Government lifted the ban on fracking last week.
It’s on 5th October that the Council is due to meet to vote on the Island Planning Strategy, but with several members away at the Conservative Party conference, there are calls for the meeting to be pushed back.
Mr Bacon has said he does not want to be in a situation where the Island has to deal with new ‘threats’ of this type.
In a statement, Jonathan has said:
“The new Planning Strategy is not directly relevant to the issue of Fracking but, following a lot of work, it creates a context which is much more focussed on our Environment and, as such, it includes policies to protect and enhance our Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, our Dark Skies, the Biosphere and the pursuit of our Climate Change Strategy through the Mission Zero project.
“What can then follow will be specific policies building on that basic Planning Strategy with its upgraded approach to environmental protection. Looking to the issue of Fracking one of these policies will be a new Waste and Minerals Plan.
“This is key work that can and will follow the adoption of the new Island Planning Strategy.
Article continues below this advertisement “We seem however to be facing a situation where the Strategy is at risk of being rejected or severely delayed. This will affect our ability to pursue the specific policies to protect our environment that many (and I suspect most) want to see in place. We need to be in a position where this work can commence, in particular so we can create a Waste and Minerals Strategy that can address the threat of Fracking.
“Passing the Planning Strategy through Full Council will allow the next phase of work to protect our environment to commence. For one thing, we know that once this step is taken we can start to refer to the new policies in the Plan when looking at Planning Applications. However, the announcements made last week at Westminster mean it is imperative we move forward so that we can build on those basic policies in the Island Plan to properly protect our Island from the threats that are potentially looming over us.”
And so a ‘NIBMY’ “again dictates what is good for the island. Let the people in the area that might and I repeat might be affected, some might want it as it could possibly benefit the island
The reality of life is that we must source our own gas and become independent from outside sources or the cost of power and heat will spiral and people will be unable to heat their homes, already many families are facing the choice between heating or eating and the government has done little to help, simply raising the tax threshold to sa £30000 a year would help more than the tax relief they have handed to the obscenely rich.
If there’s a plentiful supply of shale gas, it will go the same way as North Sea gas. The Tories will sell it off and nobody will benefit.
Is that like the wonderful labour party who sold off all our gold reserves at basement prices when they were going broke.
Blah blah blah…..
Enough waffling….
Just ruddy get on with it …..
Excuse after Excuse gets very boring…
Action speaks louder than words!!!!!!!!
The photo just sums up the self satisfied arrogance of this fool.
He looks like a right c**t.
He speaks very highly of you as well !!!
Fracking local politicians!
They definitely go to school of pillocks …
Posing wassacck ….
If you read the first paragraph of jonathan statement, it is the very model of gobbledygook, lots of words that mean very little and covers his rear when it all goes wrong, when he retired from politics he should have stayed retired, he offers nothing to the current issues facing the island.
Island apathy, you want cheap gas and oil but you don’t want to dig for it. You want cheap electricity but you don’t want to see wind turbines, yet you are happy to use fields for useless solar panels instead of growing crops.
About time this moron dried up, we should have been fracking 15 years ago. our present energy problems are to be blamed on virtue signalling enviromentalist misinformation from people like him who never offer any credible alternatives.
And it should be noted that few, if any, of these people actually have the slightest knowledge of the process but all follow the herd of their hair shirted clown leaders
Do inform us of the process, as the resident fracking expert. By the way, the Tories banned it. Hardly hair shirted leaders. Clown leaders, I’ll give you that one. I’m eager for your expert opinion don’t forget.
I do not claim to be a “fracking expert” but i did work for 11 years as a drilling supervisor for Aramco in Dhahran Saudi Arabia drilling new wells, did you know Americans regard someone with the name of “bubba” as an interbred redneck idiot.
Bring on fracking, the country needs it. Unless Bacon has another source of energy which isn’t unreliable wind.
Scruffy character with a smug look
Yes let’s all sit in the dark and cold with no affordable energy. Great idea!!
As long as the Island gets the power let’s frack.
Bacon is telling porkies. Always has and always will.