The Oldham Advertiser has caught staff at multi-national energy firm E.ON UK trying to fix an opinion poll about its bid to build a wind farm.

Computer experts at the paper became suspicious when they found a large surge of “Yes” votes had been cast in its poll – all tracked back to the same source.

It emerged that 104 votes had been cast by E.ON UK staff in just 90 minutes.

The firm has now apologised and labelled its own actions “innappropriate”.

E.ON UK has controversially applied to build seven 355ft wind turbines on Denshaw Moor in Oldham, Greater Manchester, saying they would provide renewable energy for 8,000 homes.

An Internet poll run by the Oldham Advertiser, part of Guardian Media Group, asked readers to vote on the question: “Do you want a wind farm to be built on Denshaw Moor?”

But when a large number of “Yes” votes were cast in a short space of time the paper decided to investigate, and 104 votes were subsequently traced back to computer terminals at the Nottingham HQ of E.ON UK.

The firm has now admitted that staff voted in favour of the wind farm project, but claimed they were not instructed to do so by bosses.

A spokesman said: “Members of the Renewables Team wanted to show their support for the project but picked an inappropriate way to do it.”

Wind farm protesters eventually won the opinion poll with a vote against the project of 57 per cent.

Advertiser editor David Lafferty said: “We were quite staggered when we discovered staff from a huge multi-national company voted in this manner.

“We ran the poll for Oldhamers to have their say on a crucial issue. What we didn’t expect was the applicants to try and influence it in such a way.

“We noticed the surge in votes and we had a hunch something dodgy was going on.

“I’m proud of how my staff handled this story from start to finish. In the end it’s a victory for our readers, many of whom have been outraged by the actions of E.ON UK.”