Sutton Council accused of ‘treating residents with contempt’ over incinerator spewing black smoke

Councilors said Sutton Council was “treating residents with contempt” by continuing to support the Beddington incinerator despite fears over previous outages. Opposition councilors have criticized a recent report published by the Environment Agency (EA), which they say downplays the impact of the plant.

The report focuses on the impact of a significant incident last October in which black, acrid smoke billowed from the incinerator’s chimneys. Sutton Labor councilor Dave Tchil was the first person to alert EA to the incident after noticing the smell while cycling to work.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), Tchil said: “The pollution that day was very real, I reported it, I tasted the bitter smoke. Families reported children having breathing and eye problems, and local schools responded to protect the children.”

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While Viridor, the operators, are responsible for alerting regulators of any outage, it was later revealed that the employee responsible for this was not working that day. The facility, operational since 2019, has now addressed this issue by appointing a deputy.

Finally, the EA undertook an investigation into the causes and potential damage caused by the sour smoke. After six months of pressure from Sutton’s opposition councillors, the EA has finally released its “compliance assessment report” into the blackouts.

During a meeting with Fichtner, who led a third-party investigation into the outages, the councilors were told the cause and extent of the outage. EA classified it as a category 3 incident, “associated with a minor impact on human health, quality of life or the environment”.

The EA also instructed Viridor to take steps to ensure that such outages do not recur in the future. However, Tchill and his independent colleague Tim Foster believe this report was a “whitewash” that tries to downplay the incident.

Tchil believes that Viridor did not take the necessary precautions to account for a potential outage and that their backup system (island mode) was not operational at the time. Viridor acknowledged this omission and said changes would be made.

However, Tchil noted that the plant operator stated “This improvement has been implemented at Viridor’s other facilities in the UK”. He said this “seems to imply that they weren’t doing this elsewhere”.

Councilor Foster shared this sentiment and explained that the outage was due to “a fault in the UK Power Networks power line and the subsequent failure of the plant to enter ‘island mode’, which effectively allows the plant to power itself.”

When he later pressed Viridor about how many outages there had been since the October incident, they said there had been five. Numerous major incidents have occurred at the plant since its opening.

Viridor has been appointed to operate the incinerator under a £1 billion, 25-year contract by the South London Waste Partnership (SLWP). This governing body comprises councilors from Kingston, Merton, Sutton and Croydon councils and meets regularly to discuss the incinerator, among other things.

Both Foster and Tchil also took aim at Lib Dem-led EA Sutton Council, which they criticized as “powerless” in the face of the ongoing disruptions. Tchil told LDRS: “We’re just burning more and more and we can’t stop.

“Nationally, EA are the most toothless organization I have ever seen. This is a government issue that I am not giving them the mandate to go forward with.”

Foster added: “The Beddington industrial estate is surrounded by residential properties and the establishment of the factory was a construct of the Liberal Democrat Group, which relies on environmental protection in EA and denies any wrongdoing.”

Foster also acknowledged that the EA would “approve” Viridor’s recent request to burn more waste at the site. The incinerator, officially called an energy recovery facility, was originally designed to handle up to 302,500 tons of waste, but this application would allow it to take up to 382,000 tons.

A decision on the approval of this application is expected soon. The most recent SLWP meetings were canceled due to the general election.

When approached for comment, a SLWP spokesperson said: “The SLWP welcomes this report from EA. It is clear that EA and Viridor have both conducted comprehensive and robust investigations into the likely causes and impacts of the incident that occurred on 16 October 2023.

“SLWP will continue to closely monitor Viridor’s response to the EA’s recommendations. The Partnership Boroughs will use all available contractual and regulatory mechanisms to ensure that Beddington ERF operates to the highest possible standards and continues to provide a safe and sustainable waste treatment solution for the residents of the four boroughs.”

A Viridor spokesman said: “ERF Beddington is strictly managed and regulated by the Environment Agency. Following a blackout in October 2023, Viridor worked with the Environment Agency to verify all data submitted by Beddington ERF after the blackout and implemented key recommendations.”

Cllr Christopher Woolmer, Liberal Democrat Chair of Sutton Council’s Environment and Sustainable Transport Committee told LDRS: “The Environment Agency (EA) is responsible for the safe management of the Beddington Energy Recovery Facility and the Liberal Democrats in Sutton expects the regulator to take responsibility. extremely serious.

“In this case, the EA considered the breaches to be minor and instructed them to put controls in place to ensure they do not recur in the future. No one wants to see emissions violations of any kind and so we expect the EA to take tough action. action if this happens again.

“The Liberal Democrats in Sutton support the ‘reduce, save and recycle’ approach as the best way to manage waste in our borough and do not want to see a return to environmentally friendly landfill. Until we get to a zero-waste world, the EA needs to do its job as the regulator of this form of waste disposal properly.”

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