Hersey Nature Reserve is a rich, diverse and valuable wildlife site.  This significant community asset is supported by local volunteers, much used and appreciated by island residents, and attracts nature lovers from far and wide on the mainland. 

Created in mitigation for habitat lost when the £4.5 million sea wall was built in 2003, the Hersey Nature Reserve is managed by the Council and occupies land leased to them on a 50-year lease. 

Sea View Yacht Club already has permission to knock a ‘Hole in the Wall’ and now want to take over part of the Reserve and use it as a boat park so they can build ‘facilities’ on the land they have recently bought to the west of the entrance to the Reserve and currently use as a boat park. 

Why?  The Commodore told members of the yacht club that to “alleviate pressures on our current Club House and perhaps provide some quieter time for those who are less enthused with cadets charging around during our peak summer training season … we are engaging with a number of vested interests to see if we can find a way to allow SVYC to occupy further land as a boat park” because “the area we now currently own is only half of what we originally wanted (the other half having been leased on a long lease to the IWCC by the freeholder).”  There is no mention that this ‘other half’ is part of the Hersey Nature Reserve.

Taking over part of a Nature Reserve as a boat park is not only unjustifiable in terms of the Island’s Core, Green and Community Strategies, it is entirely unnecessary – within the ‘Beach Hut’ development to the east of the Reserve, which Sea View Yacht Club members supported en masse, there is an enormous, unused, bespoke dinghy park. 

The freeholder of this unused dinghy park is the same freeholder who leases the land to the Council and from whom the yacht club has purchased their boat park.

PLEASE HELP TO PROTECT THIS WONDERFUL NATURE RESERVE. 

PLEASE SIGN AND SHARE THIS PETITION WHICH LETS OUR COUNCILLORS KNOW YOU ARE OPPOSED TO ANY PROPOSAL THAT THE ISLE OF WIGHT COUNCIL ALLOW SEA VIEW YACHT CLUB TO USE/OCCUPY/MANAGE OR LEASE ANY PART OF THE HERSEY NATURE RESERVE, DUVER ROAD, SEAVIEW [LAND REGISTRY TITLE No. IW54973].

Thank you.

Friends of Hersey Nature Reserve