Cheshire East Council has voted unanimously to formally object to the £5 billion Peak Cluster CO2 pipeline proposal.

There was applause from the public gallery as all 66 councillors present at yesterday's (Wednesday) full council meeting backed a motion to oppose the controversial project, which aims to capture carbon dioxide from cement and lime plants in Derbyshire and Staffordshire and transfer it via a 121-mile pipeline to a storage facility under the Irish Sea.

Several members of the public spoke out against the controversial pipeline which will pass through four local authority areas, including Cheshire East, if approved by government.

Wirral, Cheshire West & Chester, and Derbyshire councils have already formally objected to the scheme.

The motion, first put forward by Conservatives Lesley Smetham and Hayley Whitaker in July, had been updated for yesterday's meeting and included the backing of councillors Michael Gorman (Wilmslow, Ind) and Dawn Clark (Crewe, Lab).

It urged the council to formally object to the scheme and to detail its concerns to the project's developers, the planning inspectorate and relevant regulatory bodies.

Cheshire East will also write to the government requesting that 'no approval be granted until the issues identified by this council have been satisfactorily resolved'.

Cllr Smetham (Gasworth) said: "Mitigation for climate change is essential, but we should not do harm during that process."

She said Peak Cluster was 'a costly and extreme proposal' and had 'no benefit for the people of Cheshire East'.

"We would leave stored carbon and its related harm and cost to be dealt with by future generations," she said.

Cllr Hayley Whitaker (Poynton) said: "Our objection is not to reducing carbon emissions, it is to a project that raises serious questions about safety, environmental damage, land use, and detrimental impact on communities."

Cllr John Knight (Macclesfield, Green) said the pipeline proposal was presented as a measure of decarbonisation but was allowing the industry to side-step when companies should be 'multiplying their efforts to change production methods to reduce carbon dioxide production'.

Cllr Chris O'Leary (Sutton, Con) said: "The disruption and additional emissions created by the construction, the loss of productive farmland and food security, the loss of livelihood to our farmers… the loss of natural habitats, decreasing property values, the additional emergency response costs to Cheshire East Council, the light and noise pollution generated by the AGI, and the risk of pipeline rupture or terrorist attack on the AGI – all of these are substantive and unavoidable costs that Cheshire East residents should not be asked to bear."

Shavington councillor Linda Buchanan (Lab) said the point of the pipeline is to reduce CO2 entering the atmosphere, 'so we'll have long-term gains, ultimately protecting our countryside for future generations'.

She continued: "But we need to be reassured that the pipeline is safe.

"Let us tell this government that, whilst in its current state, Cheshire East does not support the pipeline, however, we do support the principle of the major UK carbon capture infrastructure project.

"Reducing CO2 emissions is good for our future generations, good for the future farming community, and good for the future of Cheshire."

Council leader Nick Mannion (Macclesfield, Lab) said there were 'too many unanswered questions' about the proposal.

He told the meeting: "Climate change is real… we need to act now."

But he added: "Is Peak Cluster Ltd's proposal the safest and most appropriate response for the cement industry? I have yet to be convinced."

Last month, following consultation, Peak Cluster announced amendments to the proposed pipeline route.

More information about Peak Cluster is available at www.peakcluster.co.uk