E.ON UK, a subsidiary of E.ON, has welcomed the findings of an independent study of the site of a proposed wind farm in Northamptonshire which found no link to the English Civil War battlefield almost two miles away at Naseby.
E.ON has said that it is developing the wind farm on behalf of the Kelmarsh Trust and commissioned the Battlefields Trust survey to see whether the proposed site held any archaeological relevance to the Battle of Naseby in 1645.
The company has said that the metal detection work was carried out by a team of experts from the Battlefields Trust on an area of 26 hectares on the western edge of the proposed wind farm site.
E.ON was selected by the Kelmarsh Trust to develop a wind farm on the Kelmarsh Estate. The seven turbines, each up to 126.5m to the tip of the blade, will generate up to 17.5MW of renewable energy, enough to power up to 7,800 homes and save up to 15,800 tonnes of CO2 per year.
Daniel Badcock, project developer for E.ON, said: We pride ourselves on being a responsible developer and it’s extremely important we take every step to understand the site and minimise any impact we might have.
This is just one of a number of historical and environmental studies we are carrying out before submitting a planning application and I’m delighted the study found no archaeology which was relevant to the Naseby battlefield. We commissioned the Battlefield Trust to carry out the study and their report states clearly that no combat action took place in the area of the wind farm.
