Cheshire East Council has unanimously voted to formally oppose the £5 billion Peak Cluster carbon dioxide pipeline, becoming the fourth local authority in the region to reject the proposal.
The motion urges UK government ministers and the Planning Inspectorate to withhold project approval until safety, environmental, and community impact concerns are fully resolved.
Designed to connect heavy cement and lime operations across Derbyshire and Staffordshire to subsea storage in the Irish Sea, the project faces mounting local opposition despite its strategic role in UK industrial decarbonization.
Cheshire East Council has unanimously passed a motion formally objecting to the proposed £5 billion ($6.6 billion) Peak Cluster carbon dioxide pipeline, marking the fourth local authority to officially oppose the regional transport project.
The decision aligns Cheshire East alongside Derbyshire County Council, Wirral Council, and Cheshire West and Chester Council in raising formal objections against the scheme.
The motion, introduced by Conservative councillors Lesley Smetham and Hayley Whitaker with cross-party support, calls on the council to submit its objections to both developer representatives and the UK Planning Inspectorate. It further requests that government ministers withhold formal planning consent until safety, environmental, and community concerns are adequately addressed.
The £5 billion infrastructure project is designed to transport biogenic and industrial CO2 captured from cement and lime manufacturing plants across Derbyshire and Staffordshire to permanent subsea geological storage beneath the Irish Sea.
While project proponents highlight the pipeline’s critical role in safeguarding heavy manufacturing jobs and abating hard-to-decarbonize industrial emissions, local resistance has intensified around safety, farmland disruption, and construction impacts.
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