THE company behind a planned windfarm near Dorchester says two public exhibitions it hosted were a great success.

Broadview Energy Limited, a growing British renewable energy company that develops and constructs wind farms in the UK, is in the early stages of exploring the potential for installing up to seven wind turbines on farm land east of the villages of Charminster and Charlton Down.

Broadview invited members of the public to exhibitions in Charminster and Charlton Down.

The exhibitions, which gave residents the opportunity to speak to Broadview’s project team, find out about the proposals and provide feedback, attracted around 250 people throughout the day.

A spokesman for Broadview said it received a wide variety of responses to the plans and was very pleased that residents had taken the opportunity to come and speak to them and find out more.

He said the company was still compiling the feedback it received but early indications suggest that the range of responses broadly reflect those received by the parish council following a survey it undertook about the proposals in September 2013.

But some staged a protest against the proposals at the meeting in Charlton Down.

Anti-wind farm resident Geoff Markham said: “There is just no detail.

“It’s a ‘nice’ display, there are lots of ‘nice’ pictures, but there is nothing concrete.

“They are asking for a lot of goodwill without giving us the facts.”

He said he doesn’t believe a wind farm would be a viable way to generate energy.

The survey was delivered to all households in Charminster and Charlton Down and of the 341 responses the parish council received, 41.9% were in favour of the proposals, 47.8% were against and the remainder were undecided.

A number of environmental and technical surveys are still underway at the site and Broadview says it intends to use the results, along with the feedback it received at the recent events, to help design the best possible proposal for the area. It intends to strike the right balance between maximising the generation of clean, renewable electricity and being sensitive to the visual change that the turbines will introduce to the area.

Tom Cosgrove, project manager at Broadview Energy, said: “We are at a very early stage with our plans but it’s important to Broadview that local residents are given the opportunity to be involved in the development process from the outset. We received a lot of helpful feedback at the events which we will be considering in our design and assessment process.

“We will continue to stay in touch with the community as we progress.”

Broadview is proposing to donate £5,000 per MW of installed capacity per annum into a community fund which, if the final project were to consist of seven 2MW turbines, would amount to in excess of £1.7m over the project’s expected 25 year life.