PLANS are in the offing for a wind farm close to an historic Northumberland landmark and on the boundary of a national park.

Wind company Air Farmers Ltd is working on a scheme for nine turbines, 125m high, at Elsdon, close to the Grade II listed Winter’s Gibbet and directly beside the boundary of Northumberland National Park and the A696.

The gibbet, said to be around 1km from the turbine site, is a gallows type structure from which a wooden head hangs.

It recalls the hanging of a man and two women in the later 18th century for murder, with the man’s body supposedly having been left to rot at the site.

Details of the scheme first emerged at a meeting of Elsdon Parish Council, which was attended by planning consultant Bob Morgan on behalf of Air Farmers.

The meeting was told a scoping report for the development – which would be known as Middle Hill Renewables Ltd – is to be submitted to Northumberland County Council within the next week.

The meeting was attended by representatives from the county council and Northumberland National Park Authority.

Parish chairman Keith Maddison said his council had yet to take a view on the application, which he said had come as “a bit of a surprise”.

He said the parish was in the process of gauging local residents’ views and that it would discuss the project at its next meeting in September.

But Coun Maddison voiced his own reservations, citing doubts about the efficiency of turbines and concerns about visual impact, noise pollution and effect on residents – with “quite a few people” said to live close to the site and claims one turbine would be within 800m of a home, and the subsequent impact on value of properties.