POWER from a proposed wind farm off the Dorset coast could be channelled into the national grid at Three Legged Cross.

Developers of the Navitus Bay Wind Park, which would sit 8.2miles off Swanage, have revealed two possible sites for its sub-station.

Around 15 acres are needed. Land south of the existing Mannington substation at Holt Road and a plot east of West Moors Road are being considered.

Eneco’s Navitus Bay project director Chris Sherrington wants people to come along to public exhibitions and say which they prefer.

Mr Sherrington said: “We’ve spent a year to 15 months on this process and narrowed it down from around 100 options to those we felt would be most suitable and would minimise the impact on local communities.

“Some were ruled out because of the visual impact or because they were in environmentally sensitive areas.”

Visitors to the exhibitions at West Moors Pavilion on Friday and Saturday will see images of how the development might look.

Around a third of the site would be taken up by buildings, Mr Sherrington said.

The company intends to apply for planning permission in 2013, planning consent in 2015 and start creating the 150–240 turbine farm a year later.

It would open in 2019. With a capacity of up to 1200MW, it could generate power for 615,000 to 820,000 homes.

“The subsea cable would come to shore and we’d need a buried cable right the way through to the new substation,” Mr Sherrington said.

“That’s quite a major construction project in itself, making a significant number of jobs, contracts and services.”

The exhibitions run from 2pm to 8pm on Friday and 10am to 4pm on Saturday.