Unfinished work: Viridor, and their business successors Valencia, have been promising the conduct restoration work at Beddington Farmlands since 2005
After 10 years of broken promises and delays, a local council has bowed to the interests of big business, at the expense of the environment and local residents. By our wildlife correspondent, PAUL LUSHION
Sutton’s Liberal Democrat-controlled council and their business partners, multi-national incinerator operators Viridor, have “failed” with the promised restoration of Beddington Farmlands.
That’s according to concerned local campaigners and environmentalists after Sutton signed off on some much diluted, reduced plans for the project, which have been promised for almost 20 years and ought to have been completed by 2023 according to planning agreements which allowed the polluting Viridor incinerator to be built at Beddington.
Viridor palmed off all responsibility for the project in a sale of its landfill interests to Valencia Waste Management in 2022, but the planning conditions agreed in 2013 remained unaltered. Sutton has failed to conduct any enforcement action over the unfulfilled planning promises. And now, they are letting the business interests re-write their undertakings.
Beddington was once promised to become one of London’s and the south-east’s most important wildlife habitats. Returning the former sewage works and landfill site to a nature reserve was beset by delays and excuses – many locals suggested that multi-billion commercial interest Viridor was deliberately holding back on promised investments. Once Valencia appeared on the scene, they came up with revised plans for the site which reduced the promised improvements – and, of course, the costs to the business.
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After a lip-service consultation over Christmas, Sutton’s pliant LibDems duly rubber-stamped the business’s proposals, with Lysanne Horrox, the chair of the Hackbridge and Beddington Corner Neighbourhood Development Group, saying: “The current plan for the restoration of Beddington Farmlands has failed to meet its objectives.”
And Tony Burton, the chair of the Wandle Valley Forum, said: “The revised plans for Beddington Farmlands are a huge disappointment.
“All the evidence shows they are not as good for either wildlife or public access as the original plans.
“Local communities have been waiting in vain for years to enjoy the long-promised nature reserve only to have their hopes dashed by the new owners.
“Sutton Council now needs to stand firm and demand a much more ambitious approach that benefits wildlife, provides better public access, and connects the whole area of open land between Mitcham Common and Beddington Park on both sides of the railway.”
Reed marvel: a penduline tit spotted among the reeds at Beddington
Valencia has abandoned key requirements of the original planning condition to create an acid grassland site. The Wandle Valley Forum also suggests that any money Valencia has saved by failing to deliver that promised work has not seen more investment elsewhere on the site, such as on new habitats.
“The alternative proposals are both less expensive to deliver and result in poorer biodiversity outcomes,” the WVF said. “It is essential therefore to not only enhance the plans to provide a net ecological gain over the original plans but also to mitigate the loss of acid grassland and heath.”
Public access to the site remains an on-going concern.
Valencia’s PR continues to issue piffle, familiar from when Viridor was breaking its legally-binding promises for the site: “The project is vast in scale, and complex requiring significant investment, and detailed management to establish the habitats. Significant progress is being made onsite.”
But since the plans were approved more than a decade ago, in a Faustian quid pro quo which now sees the Viridor incinerator making huge profits for its owners while frequently emitting toxic chemicals into the air over south London, the wildlife on Beddington Farmlands has been taking a toll, with one of London’s last remaining colonies of tree sparrows wiped out, and the site’s wading birds made vulnerable to predation because of the lack of proper water management.
Read more: It’s time to re-set our approach to Beddington’s nature reserve
Read more: Viridor’s charge sheet: incinerator operator’s eco-vandalism
Read more:After a decade of delay, Sutton condemns Viridor. Sort of
Read more: CPRE tells Mayor Khan to make Farmlands a new public park
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