A planned expansion of the world's largest wind farm has been abandoned because of the impact on the local population of red-throated divers.

The developers behind the £1.9 billion London Array had intended to add 100 turbines to the 175 already fixed to the seabed off the Kent coast.

The expanded wind farm would have been able to provide power for about 750,0000 homes. However, the consortium — Denmark's Dong Energy, E.ON of Germany and Abu Dhabi's Masdar — said that a study to prove that the expansion would not damage the protected birds' habitat would take at least three years.

The consortium said that it was unable to guarantee that the impact would be acceptable to planning authorities and would cancel the proposed second phase.

It is at least the sixth offshore wind farm project to be abandoned or scaled back in the past three months as developers struggle with rising costs and falling subsidies.

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