Controversial plans to build a recycling plant off Preston's Docklands were rubber stamped by the county council's development control committee yesterday.

County councillors voted by 11-2 for the scheme, to be sited off Wallend Road, Riversway.

The plant was given the go-ahead despite Preston city councillors rejecting it in May at their planning committee.

A vociferous campaign by Residents Against the Transfer Station (Rats) has been waged against the site, and more than 100 letters of objection were written to the county council. Mark Jewell, chairman of Rats, said: "It's not over yet, but this is a big blow.

"It will appear that the county council had bulldozed through their own application while covering their ears to the uproar of objections."

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) must now approve the plans before building work can begin.

Mr Jewell said the group would consider lobbying the ODPM.

Objections against the plant have included that the site is on a flood plain, that it is green field and arable land, and a potential blight on the land.

Other worries were the increased traffic because of the 168 lorries going to and from the site each day, the potential of smells, and damage to wildlife in the area.

The station forms part of a network of waste stations across the county. Work is projected to start in 2007 in time to start working in 2009.

It will be bigger than two football pitches with buildings 13 metres high, and will deal with 87,000 cubic tonnes of recycling waste and composting material each year.

Simon Prideaux, deputy head of development control, said that although the land was designated open countryside, that was outweighed by the need to build the plant at Preston's docks to meet tough recycling targets.