Marina Ahmad, Labour’s London Assembly candidate in Croydon and Sutton, is demanding an investigation into the contracts and deals surrounding the £1billion Viridor incinerator being built at public expense on Beddington Lane, on the Croydon-Sutton borough boundary.
Assembly candidate Marina Ahmad: incinerator scheme needs independent investigation
“The incinerator scheme makes Sutton the rubbish dump of south-west London,” Ahmad said.
“The reports about how LibDem councillors in Sutton failed to declare their close links to Viridor, the company which benefits financially from the scheme, and how other councillors were coerced to support it through the planning stage require thorough investigation.
“If I am elected to the London Assembly on May 5, I will demand an independent inquiry into the decision-making process for the incinerator.”
Ahmad wants the inquiry also to examine the details of a heat network scheme proposed by Sutton, and a report commissioned by the local council but which was suppressed when it showed that local residents in Sutton and Croydon face being saddled with heating bills for thousands of pounds extra if they sign up to the deal.
“Sutton’s Liberal Democrat council has consistently refused to be open and honest about the incinerator scheme and the impact that it will have on air quality, the local environment and local residents for generations.
“We cannot allow them to brush this under the carpet.
“Steve O’Connell, the Conservative Assembly Member for Croydon and Sutton, has not just been asleep at the wheel on the Beddington incinerator – he has actively supported it.
Steve O’Connell, left, with Boris Johnson promising a tram link to Crystal Palace which has never been delivered. This year, he’s promising… a tram extension for Sutton
“O’Connell voted in favour of the scheme as a councillor in Croydon, and he did nothing to stand up for the interests of local people against big business when the planning decision was referred to the Tory London Mayor Boris Johnson, who rubber-stamped the project to go ahead,” Ahmad said.
“People are tired of this toxic mix of evasion and indifference from so many of their elected politicians.
“Despite the serious concerns raised regularly by local residents over the effects the plant will have on their health and household budgets, they have been ignored.
“A Conservative-run City Hall after this May would continue to neglect the needs of the people of Croydon and Sutton. Zac Goldsmith has already shown his contempt for local residents. For all his so-called environmental credentials, he is unwilling to step in to challenge the development of this plant.
“I will not let this go. This is about full disclosure of £1 billion-worth of public spending that fundamentally affects people’s health and well-being.”
From Inside Croydon’s incinerator archive:
- Sutton admits incinerator heating scheme could end up in High Court
- The council incinerator report that Sutton didn’t want you to see
- Conflicts of interest exposed over councillor’s old pals’ act
- £1bn incinerator and £275,000 ‘gift’ is back in the spotlight
- Ex-councillor says he was ‘coerced’ over incinerator planning decision
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It’s time Croydon stopped being so unmetropolitan…you are London.You are not the second class citizens the Tories or Labour create,so they can “champion”, or is that ignore?Both the incinerator and the carpet gnome’s school NEED YOU TO WALK THE WALK.
Blow the lies away,do your own citizen science IN CROYDON
This is what walking the walk means:
Asthmatic children wear monitors to track levels of pollution on way to school
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/asthmatic-children-wear-monitors-to-track-levels-of-pollution-on-way-to-school-a3222336.html
The results are ALWAYS SHOCKING,ALWAYS GRAPHIC,ALWAYS UNDENIABLE.
Passivity plays into the hands of the greedy and the lying
It’s time you did something about it.
Big question: Are you going to ignore the pressure of party whips who want you to vote their way and not the residents?
One of the arguments against the incinerator is that it wouldn’t be commercially viable, because it relies on being fed by lorry-loads of waste coming from all over the South-East: a steady supply which is unlikely to materialise or to be maintained in the long term (as recycling increases). Regardless of the rights and wrongs (Correction: regardless of the wrongs) of the planning process and the incinerator idea, I am cautiously optimistic that the incinerator will never actually get going on an operational level – or that it won’t last long. When the ballgame isn’t worth the candle it’s written on, and when the lemmings are coming home to roost, there’s more than one way to stop a rampaging hippopotamus.
The thing to remember is that this incinerator is unnecessary to dispose of our municipal rubbish.
It is a only viable if it sucks in commercial waste from the private sector.
If incineration is necessary to dispose of the residue left after maximum recycling, then a case can be made for incineration. BUT……. there is an uncritical acceptance of a London Planning policy mantra that says ” waste must be disposed of locally”. Fine, in theory, but when the effluent is breathed in by 1/4 of London’s people, the policy must be wrong. Take a coastal power station, and build rail sidings in all four boroughs, and load it for rail transportation to rural or coastal power stations, and incinerate it there, but not in S London’s back yard! 400,000 Nimbies are not wrong!
The SW London Waste Plan turned out to be a sick joke, failing entirely to be worthy of the name “Plan”. A cynical or naive exercise in obscurantism, it failed entirely to look at real options for disposing of waste.
It has given birth to a Frankenstein’s monster, soon to add further pollution blight to Beddington and all areas affected by the lorries bearing rubbish to feed the maw of the incinerator. .
All the SW London boroughs — which are run by all of the 3 main political parties– need to get together and stop the incinerator. Public Health is too important.
If the procurement of the incinerator was influenced in any way by unlawful practices, those responsible should be named and shamed, and then barred from public employment and office as councillors. Let’s hope that Marina Ahmad succeeds in her efforts to get this whole apparent mess unpacked and exposed to the light of press, public and political scrutiny.