Public accountability? Not if you were expecting any answers…
Boris Johnson: a subliminal message (by the London Mayor’s usual standards of subtlety)?
London Assembly Member Fiona Twycross yesterday tabled a couple of questions to London Mayor Boris Johnson about the south London incinerator that is proposed to be built at Beddington Lane with what even its developers, Viridor, admit to be a “technically inappropriate” scheme.
Boris failed to answer any of the questions.
He couldn’t – he will later have to rule on the plans and to comment publicly now might see him as pre-judging the issue.
So not much point in raising those questions then, really, was there?
Judge for yourself:
- Incinerator campaign turns to Miliband family for legal help
- Tory councillor acts as delivery boy for £1bn incinerator company
- Ashes to ashes: Only Boris can stop Viridor incinerator now
- Inside Croydon: For comment and analysis about Croydon, from inside Croydon
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As usual, politicians playing power games paid for by the rest of us.
Is there any point in AM members?
It takes a two-thirds majority to put a block on any of the Mayor’s measures. Combine this system with the AV simulant by which members and the Mayor are elected and it’s pretty much impossible for any elected combination of AM members to actually ever stop the Mayor doing anything unless he goes completely off his rocker. And probably, no one would notice even then.
I mean 66%+1 doesn’t sound too democratic to me. So what do they have to do all day except throw verbal custard pies at him during Mayor’s Question Time? There are amoeba with more teeth than the London Assembly. It’s a waste of space and time.
It is important to keep raising this issue and taking opportunities to keep it at the fore front of decision-makers minds. Many people understand spoken messages better than written messages, therefore it may have been vital to highlight orally/aurally people’s concerns.
Given the gravity of this decision; and the fact that the opinions of all the community groups have been ignored it is important to keep plugging away. It is a very complex issue that people including politicians struggle to understand. Very poor consultation procedures have made it difficult to communicate with very concerned local groups. Many people who are directly affected have no idea of what is proposed or how it will impact on local traffic and air quality.
Local groups are spending hours discussing this and getting letters signed to object – over 800 letters were handed in yesterday alone…. There is a terrible chasm between Government and people on this issue and that is not good for civil society.
At every opportunity we need to flag up that ignoring such strong local opinion is Government failure.
Boris specifically pledged to listen to the people on this one.
Of course, it is the same Boris who also pledged to extend Tramlink to Crystal Palace. Twice.
The unique thing about the local situation is that Croydon Conservatives are the only council administration that specifically lied on this. They opposed incineration before the last council elections (when they were the administration) then supported it in power. The ONLY council in the ‘deal’ to do so.
Lets simply recycle more – as greenpeace showed in 2001.
http://www.timothygodfrey.net/2011/06/stop-rubbish-and-talk-recycling.html
Burning 275,000 tonnes of domestic waste a year in an incinerator near residential areas of Sutton and Croydon is not going to improve air quality or traffic in the area.
The planned incinerator will burn lots of waste that could be recycled instead.
The better alternatives to dealing with our waste, such as waste reduction, increased recycling and composting have not been properly considered, because they aren’t profitable enough for Viridor, the company that wants to build the incinerator. We need to put people and the environment before corporate profits, and throw out this plan for an incinerator.
Adding these fumes to the air we breathe is just as undesirable as adding something doubtful to our water supply, though we can chose whether to drink the water.
This really is a no brainer!! Come on Boris, we need a clean and secure environment for our children to grow up in. Stop putting profit before people. If there must be an incinerator, why not place it away from residential sites ? As above, it would be good to go for the recycling option, has this really been tried out yet??
There are many technologies available to deal with waste which do not include reducing it in volume to toxic bottom ash and toxic fumes, not least of which is the extensive and improving recycling scheme in place at present.
If all 4 boroughs involved in the South London Waste Plan (who are inviting Viridor to build this incinerator in Beddington), continue to increase recycling rates as they have pledged, then where will the waste come from to run the incinerator? Yep, it will come in via large lorries from outside these boroughs.
Larger toxic molecules can be filtered out of the fumes but most nano-particles can’t, so every single person breathing the air which contains them, wherever it falls from the 95m high chimneys (over 300″) will be breathing them in too. We have no choice.