Viridor - Beddington Power Plant

Very friendly staff but over all keeps us moving through as quickly as possible
Feb 10th, 2023

Jan 20th, 2023

Dec 19th, 2022

Over the last 35 months the incinerator has managed to breach the Environment Agency permit conditions 35 times, polluting more toxic fumes into the area around Sutton, Croydon & Merton than permitted. However even though they have a poor track record they have already increased the volume of waste they can burn by 15% (increased the smoke with chemicals they release, increased the volume of traffic to and from the incinerator) beyond that agreed during the planning application. And it doesn't stop there, they have applied to increase it by another 10%, which is being considered by the Environment Agency (thankfully they are taking their time to grant the permit as the government has reduced so much funding from the department they are struggling to keep up, however it also means when the South London Waste Partnership does break the conditions of their permit the government agency is slow to react, most times doing nothing about it. The Sutton Council administration who were initially in favour of the single largest source of pollution in the whole borough because the business rates it paid to the borough were so large, together with the the gift of grants to Liberal Democrat members preferred recipients. But now even they are starting to become embarrassed by their backing of this business, just before the 2022 local elections, worried for their own seats they finally changed from praising the polluters to criticism. However they still have failed to get them to turn up to a single SLWP South London Waste Partnership committee meetings to explain their regular and reoccurring breaches. The only time Viridor the operator has appeared before council officers since the initial application when they were all friendly and promised no pollution, was when the company applied for a planning application to change their fuel source to power the incinerator to a dirtier "Furnace Fuel" diesel which saves them lots of money each year, but with more emissions from the two stacks (chimneys). The representatives from the company refused to answer the questions from members of the planning committee. The old Liberal Democrat members who backed the building of the incinerator in the first place, supported the changes without hesitation, however the new councillors on the council who had not benefit from the initial handouts were concerned and voiced their reluctance to approve the changes but voted as a party to approve the new fuel tank for the dirtier diesel. All other members / parties opposed making the air quality in the area worst. The Liberal Democrat members outnumbered the others allowing the pollution to increase.
Sep 14th, 2022

Sep 13th, 2022