Ambitious plans for Cheshire East Council to be carbon neutral by 2025 have been labelled as "impossible," with them now being pushed back to 2027.

The council made the 2025 commitment in May 2019 and the following year outlined how this would be achieved.

Cheshire East has projects in progress to achieve the 2025 target, but external factors, such as public sector financial struggles, have made it unachievable overall.

Cheshire East is also nearing completion of a 4.1MW solar farm on Leighton Grange in Crewe, located off the A530 Middlewich Road (Cheshire East Council).

Across 2023/24 a range of carbon reduction projects have been developed and implemented in the borough, such as 10 additional air source heat pumps and a further 15 hectares of tree planting.

Cheshire East is also nearing completion of a 4.1MW solar farm on Leighton Grange in Crewe, located off the A530 Middlewich Road.

This aims to put green energy back into the National Grid, as well as providing power to the council's composting facility. 

Just over two years ago, the council also adopted the UK100 pledge, committing to the borough being carbon neutral by 2045.

Chair of Cheshire East Council's environment and communities committee, Cllr Mick Warren, told Nub News: "In May 2019, after the UK parliament had declared a climate emergency, Cheshire East Council set a target of becoming carbon neutral by 2025. 

"This was at a time before Covid when no-one could have predicted the struggles that the public sector would now be facing financially.

"Our commitment to becoming carbon neutral, both as an organisation and as a borough, is as strong now as it was five years ago.

"However, we also have to recognise that the landscape we are operating in now makes it impossible for us to achieve this target.

"We have made tremendous strides in energy saving in areas such as streetlighting, reducing the amount of staff business travel, and changing the way we heat our buildings. 

"We will also complete the delivery of a 4.1MW solar farm on Leighton Grange in Crewe soon, which will put green energy back into the National Grid, together with providing power to the council's composting facility. 

Just over two years ago, Cheshire East Council adopted the UK100 pledge, committing to the borough being carbon neutral by 2045 (Nub News).

"The works that we committed to in 2019 are continuing but the target date for this to be achieved is to be reset to 2027, which still remains one of the most ambitious targets in the country for carbon neutrality.

"In January 2022, we also set a target for the borough to be carbon neutral by 2045. This target is not impacted by this change."