Despite nearly 1,000 breaches of its existing permit in a 15-month period, Viridor has had its licence extension for the Beddington incinerator granted, to the dismay of local councillors and environmentalists.
By STEVEN DOWNES
Toxic: the Viridor incinerator at Beddington, pumping pollution into our air since 2019
The Environment Agency, already known as the most useless of toothless watchdogs for its failures to police the water companies, has today managed to make that reputation worse still by granting toxic polluters Viridor their request to burn more rubbish at the Beddington incinerator.
The EA’s decision consigns generations of south Londoners to health problems caused by breathing polluted, even acidic, air from the incinerator’s emissions.
In a statement, the EA confirmed that Viridor’s licence application – submitted in 2022 – has been approved to increase “the processing capacity of the energy recovery facility to 382,286 tonnes per annum, an increase of 34,864 tonnes”.
The Beddington incinerator has been controversial since it was first proposed, and today the EA lumped a good deal of the blame for the latest licence extension on to the dodgy planning permission that was granted by Sutton’s Liberal Democrat-controlled council in 2014.
The responsibility for unleashing Viridor’s toxic, smoke-breathing monster, however, also falls to the many spineless politicians, of all parties, in Merton, Kingston and Croydon, with Sutton all members in the South London Waste Partnership, which jointly devised a £1billion contract with Viridor to burn their boroughs’ waste for 25 years.
Viridor’s latest licence extension is all about increasing the multi-billion company’s profit margin, at the expense of Londoners’ health. Viridor will continue to burn around 200,000 tonnes of the SLWP’s waste every year. But under the revised licence terms, 47% of the rubbish they will burn in future will be trucked in from other areas.
The exhaust emissions of the increased number of lorries driving through Croydon, and along the Purley Way to Beddington Lane, was not something considered by the EA, since they say that road traffic is a matter for local planners. The high number of HGV visits allowed to the Beddington plant was built-in to the original planning application approved by Sutton.
No limits: Sutton’s planning permission for the Beddington incinerator allows an almost limitless number of visits from HGVs
Extraordinarily, for a public body, the EA has ignored every single representation from the public.
The EA’s 136-page permit document shows that all local councils – even including Sutton’s previously incinerator-friendly LibDems – and individuals who responded to their consultations were opposed to the plan.
Today, the EA said, “Specialist officers have considered proposals in detail, along with information and evidence provided during two public consultations, and is satisfied the permit variation can be granted.
“The Environment Agency’s role is to assess each application and decide if it meets all requirements under relevant environmental legislation and provides a high level of protection to the environment and human health.
“It will only vary a permit if it is satisfied this is the case.
“Compliance at the site will continue to be robustly regulated in line with the conditions of the revised permit.” Those are our italics.
The EA’s “light-touch”, to almost non-existent, regulation of the water industry is the same approach being applied to the Beddington incinerator.
Viridor broke the existing limits on their licence 916 times between September 2022 and March 2024, and never bothered to report those failures to the EA, as required by their permit. “Robustly regulated” indeed.
And as they awaited the EA’s ruling, Viridor’s failures to manage their plant within supposedly “acceptable” limits increased.
In October 2025, Viridor’s Beddington plant pumped sulphur dioxide – the chemical used to make sulphuric acid – into the south London skies with emissions of 382.4 mg/m³, nearly double the permitted daily limit. The volume was literally off the scale on the plant’s public monitoring charts.
In general, the prevailing winds carry emissions from Viridor’s toxic twin chimneys out over Hackbridge, Wallington, towards Broad Green and Waddon and parts of northern Croydon.
Infant mortality rates in one part of Croydon, downwind from the waste incinerator at Beddington, increased by more than four times in the first year after Viridor began plying their polluting trade in south London, according to official data. The Environment Agency ignored calls from local environmentalists to conduct more survey work on infant deaths in areas downwind of the incinerator.
Going for the burn: the Viridor incinerator at Beddington could be burning waste for another 20 years
Indeed, the EA’s report published today shows the agency to be quite happy with all the breaches of the existing licence conditions.
In para 4.3.10 of their report, the EA says, “The facility has recorded a number of exceedances of permitted limits for emissions to air from the ERF.” Like our councils, the Environment Agency follows Viridor’s lead by avoiding the nasty word “incinerator”, preferring the bureaucratic and misleading “ERF” – for “energy recovery facility”.
“Exceedances have been recorded for carbon monoxide, TOC, sulphur dioxide and hydrogen chloride,” the EA notes. “These exceedances have generally only occurred for a short period of time, before the emissions are brought back below the permitted emission limits.
“Exceeding one of these limits by a small amount will not necessarily result in a measurable impact on the environment or harm to human health,” according to the EA, who added that “the plant could have performed better”.
The Agency goes on to describe the 900-plus breaches of Viridor’s licence as “marginal” and “insignificant”, “… and extremely unlikely to have resulted in any environmental or human health impacts”.
The add: “We did issue minor non-compliances and measures have been put in place by the operator to minimise the risk of these types of event happening in the future.”
The EA’s calm acceptance of big business’s promises has provided no reassurance to one local councillor.
“This is what happens when the planning process gets completely perverted,” said Nick Mattey, the independent councillor in Beddington who has been campaigning against the incinerator in his ward for more than a decade.
“It is truly sickening. When I see people who can’t breathe, when I see residents with cancer struggling for air simply because they live near this incinerator, it makes me feel physically sick.
“We have a mountain of toxic waste being burned right next to our homes. Our kids and our loved ones have to breathe this in just because of a corrupt planning decision.”
Read more: Infant death rates were up by 233% after incinerator fired up
Read more: Viridor’s charge sheet: incinerator operator’s eco-vandalism
Read more: Viridor incinerator fined for multiple pollution permit breaches
PAID ADS: To advertise your services or products to our 10,000 weekday visitors to the site, as featured on Google News Showcase, email us inside.croydon@btinternet.com for our unbeatable ad rates
- 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
As featured on Google News Showcase
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2026, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for an EIGHTH time in nine years, in Private Eye magazine’s annual round-up of civic cock-ups
- Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
In the EA’s permit document they state that they requested a small area study into infant mortality downwind of the incinerator (at my suggestion). The UK Health Security Agency refused to undertake the study, saying that well run and regulated incinerators (Beddington, really?) are only likely to have a small health effect if any, so they recommend not undertaking such studies as they’ll just produce small numbers(!) But if small areas are not studied and the results looked at in the context of ALL incinerators, how can they be sure there’s no effect? ONS data shows five infants above the expected number died the year after the incinerator fired up in just three wards.
The EA also failed to recognise their own report last September which demoted Beddington to E grade due to 18 months of excess NOx emissions. This meant they must quickly improve OR LOSE THEIR LICENCE! Within weeks the incinerator’s sulphur dioxide emissions went off the chart. Instead of shutting it down, the EA REWARDED Viridor with this appalling permit to burn yet more rubbish!
I’m sorry to say that I lost all faith in reasoning with anybody connected to this horrendous facility, when I read something about a high up decision-making Croydon council bright spark stating that it was fine because it could burn nuclear waste to make it safe. Unfortunately that doesn’t show a particularly high IQ rating. This is why Croydon and surrounding councils are a laughing stock, because they perversely seem to revel in their total and utter ignorance.
As for the EA, they are the dictionary definition of useless.
Yes James. It’s well known that radioactive particles cannot be destroyed by burning. On the contrary incineration just spreads the radwaste widely across the environment. Scarily, the Lakeside incinerator next to Heathrow burns radioactive waste from nuclear power stations. If it gets bulldozed to make way for the new runway at Heathrow, Beddington might be burning here it instead…
I should add that Sutton Council gave planning permission for the incinerator to burn radioactive waste! I got a round of applause from the audience for making the case against this awful decision at the full council meeting in 2014. One senior councillor responded that the application would improve the environment!
Name names, Jim
Yes, North Croydon is directly downwind from the incinerator. I looked at ONS data and found that infant mortality spiked in the year after the incinerator started up, a probable sign of high pollution levels. The EA wrote to me a few weeks ago saying they were planning to meet the Director of Public Health to discuss the matter, which I requested to join. This awful decision seems to have pre-empted that meeting.
https://insidecroydon.com/2023/09/07/infant-death-rates-were-up-by-233-after-incinerator-fired-up/
Are we certain, Jim, that as part of the EA’s consultations they were in contact with Croydon Council?
Have you had sight of Croydon Council’s response, if there was one?
Good question. Yes Croydon Council was consulted over the expansion plans but I’m afraid they did not contribute to the consultation! Sutton and Merton did make responses, the Merton contribution being particularly detailed. 265 individuals responded together with statutory consultees coming to a total of 500 responses. The Mayor of London made several strong cases against the expansion. I could find not a single response in favour of the expansion.in the 136 pade permit document.
The UK Health Security Agency in refusing to conduct an infant mortality study following on from the ONS data which was stopped after 2019 gave this statement, summarised below in the EA report. I had asked the EA to commission such a study, which they passed on to UKHSA. Infant deaths were steady with little variation before the incinerator started up, leading to a 233% increase in one ward and sharp rises in two other wards, and I had hoped they could provide a follow on from that year to confirm or deny the effect. Extremely disappointing.
“UKHSA reviewed the consultation response and associated ONS data and provided comment in line with Section 5.3.1 of this document. They also noted that given the small
number of deaths being considered and the variability across the period 2000-2019, they did not consider it appropriate to compare the number of infant deaths in a single year data for
2019 with an average across the earlier period from 2000-2018 to draw any conclusions.UKHSA’s risk assessment remains that modern, well run and regulated municipal waste incinerators are not a significant risk to public health. While it is not possible to rule out adverse health effects from these incinerators completely, any potential effect for people
living close by is likely to be very small. UKHSA will continue to review its advice in light of substantial new research on the health effects of incinerators which we understand to be under way and which will be published in peer-reviewed journals.”
It is truly grotesque that Bobby Dean — the self-styled saviour of St Helier Hospital — is now claiming to be “disgusted” that the Environment Agency has approved yet another expansion by Viridor.
As head of his leafleting cult he could have organised a major petition against burning even more waste at Beddington. Instead, he’s spent his time campaigning to get more Liberal Democrats elected to Sutton Council. He’s clearly not remotely interested in the environment — he’s only interested in securing his own power base.
Now we’ve got a couple of his fanatical supporters elected as councillor s in Beddington who will do nothing to challenge Viridor, while Sutton Council continues its cosy relationship with the company and will do nothing to upset them.
this issue doesnt just affect Sutton Borough residents as the incinerator waste pollutes the air of Croydon more !