Saturday, April 10, 2010

Black Gold

We're rich, again!

Independence for Purbeck, get digging, we're floating on oil.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1264900/Prospectors-discover-seven-potential-oil-drilling-sites-underneath-Dorset-Hampshire-Isle-Wight.html

JIC

http://tinyurl.com/y4aa6vp



Posted by Anonymous to swanageview at 7:25 AM
Posted by at
Labels: ,

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good. My extensive shareholdings in BP, ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco and ConocoPhilips will all skyrocket. Actually, this deposit is a relative drop in the ocean.

And Purbeck will get squat for the oil.

Simply a fact of life, boys and girls.

See what happens when you fight wind turbines? We need the energy from somewhere to power your computers so you can blog here.

10/4/10 3:05 pm
Anonymous said...

Why should Purbeck expect money from an oil company?

11/4/10 10:19 am
Anonymous said...

Why should Purbeck expect money from an oil company?

...................................

License fees for drilling rights. Environment impacts fees. Increased oil production business rates. A knock-on boost to local business rates. I am sure there are more taxes

11/4/10 7:26 pm
Anonymous said...

Durn.

I'm the original postee or poster, and I thought that this might have been viewed lightheartedly - oh, how wrong I was!

However, the last Purbeck oil boom got us the Wareham bypass - don't mock it - those of us who remember queuing for hours to get thru' Sandford and the Rail gates at Wareham, and then Wareham, and then Stobro', grrr .....

It also did the pubs and takewawys no end of favours with all those big n burly oil and construction workers around - hey, I did say lighthearted!

I have a friend who is still earning his dosh from them, and I used to work for RMC, one day 400 cubic metres of my, yes, MY, concrete was poured down there - and it's still standing - miracle!

11/4/10 8:35 pm
Anonymous said...

I'll give you one more good thing about Wytch Farm. BP wanted to construct an island of sorts more or less between The Needles and Old Harry, in Poole Bay, and drill from there. To its credit, before the proverbial environmental objections hit the fan, BP announced it has developed a sort of sideways drilling which meant that the huge oil reserves out there could be reached from Wytch Farm. Besides one white tower, viewable from Studland, how much of that oil production site do we see in Purbeck?

I tipped my hat to BP then and I tip it to them today. They have been good neighbours, I think. I do not work for them, but I bought a bucket load of their shares once they did this, I was so impressed.

Any contrasting views? Maybe any money from the new oil extraction development can finally provide us with a Sandford bypass??

11/4/10 10:23 pm
Anonymous said...

or a corfe castle bypass - probably too controversial.

13/4/10 8:33 pm
Anonymous said...

the only controversial thing was that the pepople of corfe couldn't agree on which route and so nothing happened.

Both sides now have to live with their inability to compromise.

Corfe is beautiful anyway, but just imagine how much better it'd be if the hill and square were pedestrianised.

14/4/10 6:50 am
Anonymous said...

heaven - you could amble around the village without fear of being knocked down by drivers in a hurry, sample the delights of the pubs and shops which would all get a huge boost in trade and be far away from polluting traffic fumes. This is something really worth doing. How can we make it happen?

14/4/10 11:34 am
Anonymous said...

History – from a non-historian.

Approx mid late '80's the great discussion happened – the W'ern route which meant chopping Corfe common in half, or the E'rn route which meant using the railway track and thus knocking the railway out entirely. There were probably other concerns as well but I can't remember them.

A consensus was never reached and so the idea faded. Later, it was thought possible that a tunnel could be put thru' the hill somewhere near Brenscombe. This was eventually knocked on the head in the early Noughties due to cost - ?£60million?


Engineering – from a non-engineer.

My solution would be to build a bridge from the Norden roundabout landing on the Valley road around Afflington – ish.

That would cost even more, and raise our NIMBIES to new heights – sorry, couldn't resist!, but if any of you have visited Millau, the bridge there is quite beautiful.

What a juxtaposition - 1000 yr old Corfe Castle framed by an ultra-modern bridge that sweeps up and over the hills and then down onto the Valley Rd.

I can almost see it now, I must be asleep!

14/4/10 2:55 pm
Anonymous said...

thanks for the enlightenment. sounds like we should resurrect the western route through the common given the sharp increase in traffic since the 80s. a small price for a dramatic improvemnt to the village and everyones life. bet there are some objections about losing the common though !

14/4/10 5:56 pm
Anonymous said...

You've got it the wrong way around.

It's actually - more roads, more cars, but hey ho .....

Some place are special and worth preserving. Sandford doesn't need a bypass. I turn left at Sibley and go up thru' the forest. Sandford!

Corfe is something else, and should be preserved, right, back to my bridge ........

14/4/10 7:30 pm
Anonymous said...

Just route all the Swanage traffic via the Rempstone/Studland road.

14/4/10 8:38 pm
Anonymous said...

Yeah, but then you're heading for a big one way system, into Swanage along New rd - the one you're talking about, and out of Swanage via the Valley rd, and Corfe would still have cars thru' it.

An improvement, I agree, but I want my bridge!

Stamps foot, and sucks dummy!

14/4/10 8:59 pm
Anonymous said...

Connect the railway from Swanage to Wareham or get the bus and leave all cars at home.

15/4/10 1:41 am
Anonymous said...

more roads, more cars, but hey ho .....

Actually it can be read either way. We wouldn't need more roads if there weren't more cars. So more cars = more roads.
Hence the Weymouth bypass. Traffic congestion = more roads.

15/4/10 1:45 am
Anonymous said...

What ever happened to those drills they used to create the Chunnel? Anybody thought about going UNDER Corfe?

Isn't there a similar plan for Stonehenge??

My other pie in the sky idea is to buy out the chain ferry company and build a causeway bridge with a lift centre across the harbour mouth, then upgrade the road system through Sandbanks...not only will we get to Poole and Bournemouth faster, but the millionaire rock stars and overrated football managers who live on Sandbanks will be mightily annoyed........

15/4/10 10:16 pm
Anonymous said...

'Actually it can be read either way. We wouldn't need more roads if there weren't more cars. So more cars = more roads.'

My head is spinning. The M25 was build to reduce road traffic going across London. It was designed to accommodate 75000 cars a day. From the start it had over 100000 cars a day. Who knows what the figure is today.

Improve roads and traffic increases. Make it easier to drive to Swanage will increase traffic. Part of the reason we came to Swanage 25 years ago was because of the charm of its relative (but quite acceptable) inaccessibility.

One man's rubbish is another man's fortune..........

15/4/10 10:20 pm
Anonymous said...

It's a bit of a conundrum, isn't it. I do agree that our 'inaccessibility' is a +ve, but I'm trying to improve Corfe.

I want my bridge, a tunnel would be acceptable, so long as it's on the Swanage side of Corfe. Thanks for agreeing that it's more roads that equals more cars, but then as you've only been here for 25 years, you don't even get the vote, do you!

18/4/10 9:30 am
Anonymous said...

From the Knoll House website

The Bridge History

In 1904 a curious scheme was proposed by a company formed by Lord Wimborne, Sir John Burt (Swanage) and Mr Bankes (Kingston Lacy; owner of Studland peninsula). Branksome Park and Swanage Light Railway Scheme was formed with capital of £68,000. They had in mind a tramway between Canford Cliffs and Swanage. At Sandbanks it "was proposed to erect a tower on either side of the water, and, by means of a cage and chain arrangement, to swing the cars across to the opposite bank and thence continue the system to Swanage". A similar method to the Middlesborough transporter bridge. Eady and French were the engineers. By 1906 its capital had grown to £266,000. Power was to come from the Bournemouth Electricity Supply Co. An enquiry was held by the Light Railway Commissioners on 26th March 1906. The scheme was opposed by the Poole Harbour Commissioners and Poole Corporation and the commissioners refused it.

In 1929 - 30 the Ferry Company's own proposal that a bridge be built was defeated in the House of Commons by 4 votes because there was no local support. The plan shows a circular ramp leading to a bridge suspended on two towers 120 ft above the spring tide high water mark. The central span was to be 600 ft between the towers. The bridge would have taken a SW direction and then SE to land by the boatyard.

Another proposal came in 1955 and also failed for lack of local support.

Every few years, letters appear in the local press urging that the ferry be replaced or supplemented by a bridge. There has never ever been any real prospect of a bridge being built. At a guess, a 3 acre piece of Sandbanks, the highest-priced land outside central London, would have to be purchased for access, and the houses demolished. The final bill would be so enormous, £40m - £50m, that either a high toll would have to be charged or local ratepayers would be saddled with a subsidy. Central government could not justify such a scheme. In the summer months Studland reaches saturation point early in the day. The ferry service has always stemmed the flow to a degree.

The height of the radio mast and antennae of Brittany Ferries' `Barfleur', in empty state, is 139 ft above the waterline, making any previous bridge plans on the small side and even less likely to be taken up than before.

19/4/10 6:11 pm
Anonymous said...

Thanks for that, very interesting.

But we're talking about Corfe AND I WANT MY BRIDGE!

Currently throwing everything I own into my pram, just wait a little ....

19/4/10 7:44 pm

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)