A £25m redevelopment of Carlisle’s The Sands Centre will have a focus on the environment, councillors have pledged.

The promise came as Carlisle City Council met on Tuesday night and approved the plan - with more than 30 councillors attending and showing their support.

The leader of the city council, Conservative John Mallinson, put forward the motion and it was seconded by the former leader, Labour’s Colin Glover.

Only Ukip councillor John Denholm objected to the proposals, with three councillors abstaining.

Mr Mallinson said: “I’m very pleased we got the support we expected across parties - not unanimous but pretty close.

“I think we now have a project that the council can move forward on. I think there will be much work to scrutinise as it develops. I’m looking forward to 2021 when we will be opening the new site.”

Mr Glover continued: “A massive amount of work has gone into this and we wanted the whole process to be open and transparent.

“We wanted people to have the opportunity to express their concerns and to make sure those concerns were considered throughout the process.

“This isn’t the end of the journey, this is approval for the construction. There will be a lot of monitoring of the situation, making sure any ongoing concerns are addressed.

“I think dealing with the concerns of climate change are going to be extremely important in all of our projects - we know the current facilities in James Street aren’t environmentally-friendly.

“We have really stressed during the design phase that making sure we have good environmental standards in the new development is really important.”

Feelings toward the project as a whole were positive, but councillors flagged a number of issues including climate change and Councillor Helen Davidson, Green Party, abstained from voting.

She said afterwards: “I personally would like to have seen a third option on the table. This would be a pause and really consider the implications of this development and our need for it at this point.

“We are in a climate and environmental emergency of huge proportions, still almost completely beyond our comprehension.

“At a time when we should no longer carry on with business as usual, we are pushing forward with this development, which is business as usual.

“At this point, is not the most sensible course of action to just pause proceedings and ask ourselves how does this redevelopment fit with tackling our climate and environmental emergency?

“And does it fit with how we need to change our society and way of life to deal with it?”