Renewable developers are demanding urgent action from Scottish ministers to ensure a major windfarm off the Fife coast goes ahead.

The developers want to resolve legal action from the RSPB which argues the project will be damaging for sea birds and was granted a judicial review earlier this month.

The £2 billion Neart na Gaoithe offshore wind power station is one of four offshore wind projects whose consent by Scottish ministers was successfully challenged.

Senior executives at Mainstream, Marubeni, Europower, Siemens and InterGen have expressed their disappointment at the judicial review in a letter to the Scotsman newspaper.

The letter says that the project will create hundreds of jobs and calls on ministers to urgently set out how they will address the result of the judicial review.

“It is now for Scottish ministers urgently to set out how they will address the result of the judicial review positively to ensure the opportunity is grasped, and to work with us and our partners to ensure that this nationally significant project is properly consented and brought into operation in the very near term,” it said.

The firms claim that the project will play a key role in delivering the Scottish government’s target of 100 per cent of Scotland’s electricity from renewable sources by 2020, and the wider climate and energy objectives of the UK government.