Site and proposal

Cogeo Planning & Environmental Services describes a site of about 1.6 hectares around 400 metres west of Blantyre, with woodland on the west, south and east, and the Rotten Calder flowing south and east of the site. The applicant's July 2025 planning statement describes 24 battery units and associated substations, switchgear, auxiliary transformers, access tracks, fencing, acoustic barriers, CCTV and biodiversity works. Those details describe a submitted design and may change through determination or revision. cogeo malcolmwood bess project malcolmwood farm bess planning statement

South Lanarkshire Council's screening opinion reference P/25/0431 is reported in applicant material as determining that an Environmental Impact Assessment was not required. PlanIndex records the detailed application as P/25/0942, received 12 August 2025 and validated 19 August; planindex malcolmwood bess application its entry says that the Council register was last checked on 31 August 2026 and the status was then “Awaiting decision”. An older City Scope record, last scraped in July 2026, showed only “Registered”. The entries are snapshots from different dates, not evidence of the application’s status after 31 August 2026. PlanIndex record · older City Scope record

Historic landscape and archaeology

The planning statement reproduces advice from WoSAS that no known Historic Environment Record site lay within the BESS plot and historic maps showed agricultural use from the 1864 OS survey. It reports the former Blantyre–East Kilbride railway cutting along the site's southern boundary, surviving piers of Greenhall Viaduct immediately south across the Rotten Calder, and 1899 OS features labelled as old shafts about 175 metres west. These are findings reproduced in the applicant’s planning statement, rather than a direct inspection of the mapped evidence. Greenhall, Milheugh and Barnhill Local Nature Reserve

The same consultee response links archaeological potential in the wider area to cists and urns recorded west of High Blantyre. It describes an 1826 cist containing an urn and inhumation at Archer's Croft, fragments of six larger urns elsewhere in the field, and dates of 1826 and 1842 given by the 1858 Ordnance Survey Name Book. Stephen Wright's 1885 Annals of Blantyre is cited for further cists found when a railway crossed the field and an urn found in a nearby garden. These find reports refer to fields across the Rotten Calder from the BESS land; they are not finds within the proposal boundary and do not establish archaeology beneath its footprint. The applicant report recommends trench evaluation if the proposal proceeded, but no result or implemented condition has been verified. Prehistoric and archaeological sites of Blantyre The historical parish of Blantyre