Councillors in Wirral are to meet to discuss how to battle a proposal for a carbon capture pipeline which would run under the peninsula and include a maintenance works near Meols.
Peak Cluster’s proposal, which is designed to help the cement and lime industries reduce greenhouse gas emissions, would see producers in Derbyshire and Staffordshire each developing facilities at their sites.
They would be linked to a pipeline to transport the emissions through Cheshire and Wirral (the route is pictured above), then offshore to permanent storage in depleted gas reservoirs under the East Irish seabed near Morecombe.
The Chief Executive of Peak Cluster, John Egan, has previously told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that the route through Wirral is “the most feasible”, and similar to the existing natural gas network which runs underground, albeit containing carbon dioxide.
But the scheme has met with huge opposition since a consultation began earlier this year, with hundreds of people attending a drop-in meeting in January in Hoylake to express their concerns.
Under planning laws, the final decision will be taken by the government rather than the council due to it being what is known as a ‘Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project’.
Now an extraordinary meeting of the local authority has been called on Monday 9 March at Wallasey Town Hall, with Council Leader, Cllr Paula Basnett, among the signatories requesting elected members agree how to fight the plan.
The meeting requisition states: “We propose that Wirral Borough Council, all parties and stakeholders together, as a unified voice, stand firmly opposed to the Wirral being used as a dumping corridor for industries over 200km away.
“Together, we call for the cancellation of the Peak Cluster project in its entirety, or, at the very least, we demand that these pipelines find alternative routes to the Irish Sea; routes that do not sacrifice our residents, our land, and our wildlife.
“The Wirral does not produce the emissions these pipelines intend to carry. The whole purpose of Peak Cluster is to collect emissions from the East Midlands and the Peak District industrial belts. Yet the plan is to carve through our peninsula so that other regions’ pollution can be pushed out under the seabed.
It adds: “The impact on people’s lives will be enormous — and it is being downplayed. A CO₂ pipeline is not a harmless piece of buried plumbing. These are large-diameter, highpressure pipelines carrying a substance that is dangerous when released in quantity.
“CO₂ is colourless and odourless. A major leak can displace oxygen and, at ground level, can be lethal to people and wildlife.
“Even if there is never a major accident — and that is a big “if” — the construction phase alone will bring years of disruption. Roads dug up. Fields ripped open. Hedgerows torn out. Heavy lorries rumbling through villages. Noise, dust, and vibration next to people’s homes. A blight on property values and uncertainty for families trying to plan their futures.
“These routes threaten our farms, our food security, and our rural economy. The proposed routes are a direct attack on nature and biodiversity at a time when we urgently need to restore them.”
Three motions have been put forward for discussion, with proposed actions including writing to the government requesting the scheme be cancelled; for there to be an independently verified impact assessment, and the creation of a community benefit fund for areas impacted by the construction of the pipeline should it go ahead.
The agenda for the meeting can be found at https://democracy.wirral.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=123&MId=12697.