Peak Cluster Update
Public consultation has opened on the plan to construct carbon dioxide (CO2) capture pipelines from the Peak District and Staffordshire, through Cheshire. And on the Morecambe Bay. This initial phase of consultation runs for six weeks from Monday 12th January to Friday 27th February 2026. Peak Cluster says, “This is an important opportunity for people across the breadth of the project to help us shape our proposals as they develop”. Visit www.peakcluster-consultation.co.uk for details of the plans, an interactive map and how you can feed back your thoughts to the company. There is a drop-in session for Cheshire residents at St Alban’s Catholic Church on Wednesday 4th February, 5pm – 9pm and a webinar on Saturday 31st January 2026.
Gawsworth is set to be impacted more than almost any other Parish in Cheshire East as the pipeline is constructed from top to bottom through our countryside and an ‘Above Ground Installation’ (AGI’) of maybe a couple of acres is proposed to be built on our Green Belt land. The AGI site will be chosen in the hatched area on the map roughly bordered by the A536, Dark Lane, Pexhill Road and the power lines in the north. Gawsworth Road bisects the search area for the 2-acre permanent construction.
The exact routes of the pipelines haven’t been finalised, and the sketch map provided by Peak Cluster is not easy to read. However it seems the pipeline from Cauldon in Staffordshire enters Gawsworth where Shellow Lane meets Pexall Road, heads north, skirts just east of Gawsworth Hall, crosses Woodhouse Lane and Lowes Lane, rounds the end of Benbrook Way and meets the A536 just to the south of its junction with Lowes Lane. It then enters the area where the AGI will be built. It’s there that it meets the pipeline from the Peak District coming from north of Macclesfield. The exit pipeline from the ‘AGI’ heads south-west along the line of Pexhill Road on its way to Morecambe Bay where the CO2 will be pumped to undersea caverns.
Looking at the map, it appears that a shorter, more obvious, route for the Cauldon pipeline could take it well south of Gawsworth village to meet the northern pipeline where the ‘AGI’ could be built outside green belt land. The Parish Council is seeking an explanation for why that route is not being currently being considered as an option.
The pipelines will eventually be buried underground and no building will be permitted above and for a short distance either side. The construction period is likely to be 2029 -2032.
The project was first conceived in 2020 and was launched in 2023 but it is only in the past few weeks that Gawsworth has been told it will be affected. The national planning inspectorate will be the deciding body rather than borough council planning department, although they will have an important input to make to deciding the final route.
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