Beddington North councillor NICK MATTEY, in a stinging open letter to the council leader, accuses the Liberal Democrats who control Sutton of putting the health of the public at serious risk
Councillor Dombey,
The Sutton cancer centre: Viridor’s Beddington Lane incinerator dominates the area, in so many ways
I find it totally sickening that this council tries to promote itself as trying to reduce cancer deaths through the London Cancer Hub, while in Beddington and Hackbridge it is actually creating and encouraging conditions that will guarantee anyone living there has a much greater risk of developing cancers from air pollution than anywhere else in the borough.
The fact that you have allowed this situation to occur shows that you are totally unfit to lead this council.
It is little wonder that you scurry out of rooms when I enter or call in security guards to throw me out of the Holiday Inn. You are so scared of coming to terms with your support for Viridor that you have forbidden any officer even to utter the word “incinerator”.
‘Band of sycophants’: Sutton leader Ruth Dombey (right)
You are just preoccupied with the £85,000 a year you rake in for leading your band of sycophants. As to residents in Beddington and Hackbridge, you let them breathe in foul air and let children fill their lungs with carcinogenic particulates, while you gloat over your paycheck.
In your time as the leader of Sutton Council:
- The council lied and cheated to get an incinerator built in Beddington.
- The Incinerator is now the biggest source of pollutants in the borough.
- Sutton Liberal Democrat councillors lied saying the incinerator would generate less traffic than a landfill scheduled to close.
- The Council claimed that an HGV ban would go into operation in Beddington Village
- You falsely claimed that the Hackbridge school would be built on a brownfield site.
- The only reason the school was built 700 metres from the incinerator was that the air quality assessment pretended there was no incinerator.
- Sutton became dependent on the incinerator and the council was guaranteed £1.4million in business rates a year.
- The council sent in a totally fraudulent financial model to obtain £4million to get SDEN built.
- Having a heat network would make it impossible to get rid of the incinerator as the New Mill Quarter residents would be without heat.
- Your inability to differentiate right from wrong was illustrated when you claimed after a CIPFA investigation that the investigators found no evidence of fraud.
- You knew full well that the Liberal Democrats fought to prevent CIPFA from investigating fraud.
- Sutton Council has fought for years to clear the Special Needs pupils out of Carew Manor.
- The council wanted vacant possession of the building and cared nothing that the pupils would be denied the use of the park that is a vital part of their education.
- The council that you lead did not care that the children would be denied an abundance of trees at Carew Manor that offered some protection from particulates,
- The council did not care that the thousands of extra miles that these 250 SEND pupils would not need to travel each year to get to Sheen Way would expose them to more air pollution.
- You do not care that no school in Bedington has a working system to limit children’s exposure to air pollution.
‘People will die’: Nick Mattey continues opposition to the Viridor
Under your leadership, the council has marginalised and treated with total disdain Beddington and Hackbridge residents.
You have put them at risk and you should never sleep easy. The council has entered into a Faustian pact with Viridor.
I hope that when you salivate over your bank statement you might one day understand the damage you have done to so many people’s lives to obtain this.
You are heartless and lack compassion, and people will die directly as a result of your support for incineration.
Nick Mattey
Read more: LibDem leader accused of ‘putting two fingers up’ to residents
Read more: Nearly two-thirds of Croydon waste is going to the incinerator
Read more: Opposition renews call for full-scale fraud probe into SDEN
Read more: Heat network’s plan depends on 75 homes that don’t exist
Read more: Tom Brake link to church donation from incinerator company
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The answer, my friend Nick, is blowing in the wind. The Independent one, coming from your friendly neighbours in Croydon.
“We know they are lying, they know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, we know they know we know they are lying, but they are still lying.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
Thank you so much Nick for keeping on keeping on.
Dombey is vulnerable to a well-coordinated attack in her Sutton North ward. The last two council elections saw UKIP split the right of centre vote, but Brexit has put paid to that.
If you add the votes that went to the Faragists in 2018 to what the Tories polled, then the majorities enjoyed by LibDem councillors Dombey, Heron and Penneck dwindle to less than 100 votes per person.
If Sutton Labour were kind enough to put in a poor show in the next few weeks instead of chasing token votes, while the Conservatives concentrated their efforts on dislodging the LibDems leader, her head would definitely roll.