Survey Other Start

In May 2026 the Green Volt project commenced a programme of ecological surveys along the onshore route, starting with water vole surveys, as set out in a developer news article titled "Minimising Green Volt's environmental impact – Water vole surveys" published on 4 May 2026 on the official Green Volt Windfarm site. Water voles are a fully protected species under Schedule 5 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, requiring presence/absence surveys ahead of any construction works that could disturb riparian habitat along the buried cable corridor. The initiation of these protected-species surveys reflects the project moving from desk-top ecological assessment into field-stage evidence collection, and represents a key environmental compliance step on the path from consented design into pre-construction works on the onshore export cable route. Article snippet indicates the programme will run along the cable route corridor in Aberdeenshire; specific contractor names and full survey scope were not provided in the public news index entry.