The city has four years' capacity left in the Dogsthorpe landfill site

On Wednesday night members approved the development of some form of incinerator near Fengate in a bid to tackle waste.

Officials have been considering various options of getting rid of the city's rubbish as the Dogsthorpe landfill site is running out of space.

Four Liberal Democrat councillors voted against the proposal, while 42 from all other parties voted in favour. There were seven abstentions.

'Ungreen solution'

The Liberal-Democrats wanted to delay the decision so that further consideration could be given to the proposal.

Peterborough has four years' capacity left in the Dogsthorpe landfill site and faces fines under a European Union Landfill Directive if it fails to make cuts in its levels of landfull rubbish.

A spokesman for the city council said that as well as voting for incineration "members voted for a programme of activities that will encourage householders to reduce waste and boost recycling and composting levels to over 65%".

"The cuts are designed to combat global warming caused when rotting rubbish emits methane, a potent 'greenhouse' gas," he added.

Peterborough Friends of the Earth (PFoE) oppose the incinerator proposal.

Richard Olive of PFoE said: "It is an extremely 'ungreen' solution to Peterborough's waste.

"If it is built it will add thousands of additional tonnes of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and will make climate change even worse."