A NEW wind farm project promoted by telecoms giant BT has been scaled back, the Lancashire Telegraph can reveal.

But the phone magnate is still confident that the proposed turbines, reduced from four to three for a site at Moor Isles Farm, Greenhead Lane, on the Higham and Reedley border, will be of significant environmental benefit.

Several meetings have been held with Higham, Reedley Hallows and Old Laund Booth parish councils ahead of the announcement.

Tom Hardy, partnerships head for BT’s Wind for Change programme, said: “This is a national wind programme and we have looked at areas where there is a significant wind resource.

“We intend to have a series of public meetings, later this summer, to explain our position with regards to the Higham development.”

He said that the company intended to generate 30 per cent of its energy needs via renewable sources by 2020. Each turbine is capabale of generating 2.3 megawatts, enough to power around 4,000 homes.

Villagers have successfully battled against earlier proposals for a wind monitor, which would assess the viabillity of any wind farm.

The company is now currently reviewing its options in relation to the development control committee decision earlier this year.

While the firm came under fire for apparently moving equipment onto the site ahead of that meeting, it has been confirmed that the apparatus in question related solely to wind monitoring, and did not require planning permission.

The other prospective Lancashire location for the programme is at Heysham. And there are several other would-be sites from Cornwall to the Orkney Islands.