A planning application from a multi-billion French-based waste company to develop a “green” gas-generating plant on Beddington Lane has encountered “vehement opposition” from at least one Sutton councillor, who says that his residents’ corner of south London is being turned into “a dumping ground for everyone else’s filth and waste”.
Suez now says that they want to use the site to develop an anaerobic digestion plant instead, processing 100,000 tonnes of food waste a year, using it to generate biogas. Suez says that their plant could provide gas to 8,200 homes, “while reducing CO2 emissions and improving the UK’s energy security by putting wasted food that has been thrown away to good use”.
But according to ward councillor Nick Mattey, Beddington “already handles 80per cent of the waste and faecal matter generated within a 10-mile radius”.
Mattey said today, “We have reached our limit, and further imposition of such facilities is unwelcome and designed to further marginalise our community.”
Mattey says that Suez’s proposed plant would be the 10th “Energy from Waste” facility built along Beddington Lane, a greater concentration of waste-treatment energy plants than anywhere in western Europe.
Experts working in the waste disposal business claim that anaerobic digestors are an improvement on just shovelling rubbish into an incinerator. As well as biomethane, the digestors also produce digestate which can be used as fertiliser.
Anyone smell gas?: this is the site, with the Viridor incinerator in the background, where Suez wants to use to turn rotting food into biogas
“There are lots of issues with badly run biogas plants,” said the source, “but not all of them produce odours.”
Mattey, who has been a long-term opponent of the Viridor-operated polluting waste incinerator on Beddington Lane, despairs that Sutton’s Liberal Democrat-run council will again decide to allow his ward to be used as a dumping ground for rubbish from across south London.
“Nobody would willingly choose to live near such a facility due to the overwhelming stench they produce and the negative impact they have on property values and people’s lives,” Mattey said.
“Waste companies that promote these digesters are only interested in maximising profits for shareholders. There is a total disregard for the negative effect on residents’ quality of life.”
Mattey describes as “fatuous and condescending” the Suez corporate position that having a waste digestor was in some way better than the company instead building a plant to produce fuel for the nearby Viridor incinerator. Mattey claims that market forces, which have seen the price paid for incinerator “fuel” fall dramatically, is the real reason driving Suez’s change of approach.
And Mattey says that the anaerobic digestion plant now proposed is only viable because of a “massive government subsidy” that will be handed to Suez’s French owners.
“I vehemently reject the argument that processing 100,000 tonnes of putrescent food in our already heavily polluted area will not have significant consequences,” said Mattey, who has been a councillor for Beddington North since 2014.
‘Vehement opposition’: councillor Nick Mattey
“We are already inundated with numerous unsightly and dirty industries, and adding another noxious facility is completely unacceptable.”
Suez’s project development manager, Tim Hughes, describes anaerobic digestion as “an excellent method of energy generation”.
He said, “Government policy changes around food waste collection and processing mean that London, just like the rest of the UK, is ultimately going to need a network of treatment facilities across the city to process its food waste.”
If Suez’s application is approved, construction would begin next year, with the plant expected to be operational by 2025-2026, creating “up to 21 permanent jobs”, according to the company.
Suez has begun a pre-application consultation, with the public invited to attend drop-in sessions at St Mary’s Church, on Church Road near Beddington Park, next Tuesday, July 18 between 1pm and 8pm, and Wednesday, July 19, from 10am to 4pm.
Read more: Viridor incinerator fined for multiple pollution permit breaches
Read more: ‘People will die’: Dombey accused of Viridor ‘Faustian pact’
Read more: Heat network’s plan depends on 75 homes that don’t exist
Read more: Viridor breaking rules over incinerator’s pollution reports
- Inside Croydon – as seen on TV! – has been delivering local community news since 2010. 3million page views per year in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
- If you want real journalism, actually based in the borough, you should consider paying for it. Please sign up today. Click here for more details
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content
- Inside Croydon works together with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as well as BBC London News and ITV London
