Despite the expense I decided to rectify the damage as I prefer to have the battery under the hood/bonnet, rather than giving up boot/trunk space and the engine bay needed repainting. I purchased the repro panel offered by UK vendors but noted on receipt that it is not an exact reproduction. It is a little thinner and lacks folds illustrated in the 2nd photo below.
It would be good if the wedge community could force vendors to declare such differences, or even better, to reproduce panels to an appropriate standard.
---
The frustrating thing about this repair is the quantity and quality of welds used by the Speke factory workers.
The picture below shows the seam welds used to connect the battery tray to the firewall. Generally, these were OTT and the third from left weld had blown through the firewall!
Close examination revealed there were 5 spot welds securing the top of the water bottle tray to the inner flitch and 6 welds fixing this part to the battery tray.
Removing the battery tray required drilling out 6 more spot welds to the inner flitch.
I sincerely hope you don't have to do this repair as it is not for the faint hearted!
Owen
ps. I found I needed to drill the spot welds out to 3/8" (or 10mm) to gain release.