A DECISION on whether to allow an £18m power plant to be built in a small village has been deferred.

There has been a strong public reaction against creating the battery storage plant at Thorpe Thewles, near Stockton and now Stockton Borough Council’s planning committee has asked for more information.

Objections have centred on worries that the village of just 182 homes will not be able to cope with a big increase in traffic during construction, especially on a narrow road to High Middlefield Farm, where the station would be erected.

At the meeting in Stockton Central Library there were also calls to build the station on an alternative industrial, ‘brownfield,’ site instead.

However Andrew Troop, part-owner of the Statera Energy Ltd company that wants to build the plant, said any other location would not be practical. He added that there would only be 500 vehicle deployments during the entire construction phase.

Eventually all the councillors apart from one voted to defer the decision in order to obtain more information about traffic, noise levels, safety and potential alternative sites.

The only councillor to vote for the scheme was Phil Dennis, Conservative, who argued there was a strong national interest for the plant. He said that the country needed to rely far less on energy sources from unstable, foreign countries and, in any event, the construction phase would only be for a limited period of time.

It is expected the issue will be debated again next month when a decision is expected to be made.