In the early 1970s, when the North Sea Oil and Gas Industry was gathering momentum, 800 acres of natural saltmarsh at Whiteness Head were reclaimed for development as an oil platform construction site.

 

The yard closed, and was sold on to the Whiteness Property Company in 2004. The reclaimed site has a harbour protected by a mile-long moving sand and shingle spit, and is bounded by saltmarsh, and inter-tidal sand and mud flats, on all but its landward boundary. The shorelands all along the Moray Coast, and Whiteness in particular, have long been a haven for large numbers of birds, and are protected by the highest levels of nature conservation designations in Europe.