A 15-TURBINE wind farm in the Borders is being proposed on the site of a former planning bid which was ditched after it raised the hackles of concerned locals.

A pre-application request has been submitted to Scottish Borders Council for the Millmoor Rig Wind Farm, to be located at Wauchope Forest, south of Bonchester Bridge and within existing commercial forestry land.

It is anticipated that the turbines to be constructed on the site would each have a blade tip height of up to 200 metres.

A previous application for a 13-turbine wind farm at the same location, submitted six years ago, encountered major opposition due to blade tip heights of 176m.

The new applicant is Electricity Supply Board (ESB), Ireland’s premier energy company, established in 1927 and today a leading independent power generator in the UK.

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The proposed development is situated at the same location as the 2016 bid – named the Highlee Hill Wind Farm – but with a different site boundary.

That application from Hertfordshire-based Renewable Energy Systems (RES) was originally submitted in July 2016 but was formally withdrawn in May 2017.

In a report submitted with the latest submission, RSK Environment Ltd, the consultancy firm, highlights the fact that the two proposals are entirely separate.

It says: “Millmoor Rig Wind Farm is a wholly new project with no connection to the Highlee Hill Wind Farm proposed or RES.”

The RES planning application for a 13-turbine wind farm sparked a furore when it was submitted almost six years ago.

What distinguished the bid from other wind farms proposed for southern Roxburghshire at the time was that 11 of its 13 proposed turbines were to be 176m high from base to blade tip – three times as high as Edinburgh’s Scott Monument.

But commenting on the application at that time a spokesperson for RES claimed the project would be less intrusive than the firm’s original 2014 plans for 37 smaller turbines on the same site.