Private Eye carry incinerator article again

The current issue of Private Eye has yet another article about the corruption behind the South London incinerator. 

The full answer to the question asked by Baroness Jones is below:

From: Written Parliamentary Questions and Answers <NO_REPLY.HL.QASYSTEM@parliament.uk>
Sent: 09 December 2015 17:29
To: JONES, Baroness
Subject: Written answer to your QWA HL4157 received from Lord O'Neill of Gatley, HM Treasury

 

Lord O'Neill of Gatley, HM Treasury, has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (HL4157):
Question:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how the grant from Viridor Credits to Holy Trinity Church in Wallington was audited by ENTRUST and what assessment they have made of environmental objectives that grant fulfils. (HL4157) 
Tabled on: 02 December 2015
This question was grouped with the following question(s) for answer:

1. To ask Her Majesty’s Government how the grant from Viridor Credits to Twickenham Rowing Club was audited by ENTRUST, and what assessment they have made of the environmental objectives that grant fulfils. (HL4158) 
   Tabled on: 02 December 2015 
2. To ask Her Majesty’s Government how the grant from Viridor Credits to All Saints Church in Kingston was audited by ENTRUST, and what assessment they have made of environmental objectives that grant fulfils. (HL4156) 
   Tabled on: 02 December 2015 

Answer:
Lord O'Neill of Gatley: 
The Landfill Communities Fund is a tax credit scheme. It allows landfill operators to gain a tax credit against 90% of the voluntary donations they make to environmental bodies for spending on certain prescribed objectives.

The prescribed objectives include:

• the restoration of a building of historic interest or place of religious worship; and
• the maintenance or improvement of a public amenity;

within the vicinity of a landfill site.

ENTRUST, the independent regulator of the Landfill Communities Fund assesses and approves applications for project funding to ensure they meet the objectives of the scheme. ENTRUST also carries out a programme of assurance under which a cross-section of projects are selected for audit to ensure they meet the prescribed objectives, and that funds are spent compliantly.

Tags croydon, greenparty

Sian Berry and local Greens at the Beddington incinerator site.

In the foreground Tracey Hague. Behind her you can see the incinerator being built.

Last Friday Green Party Mayoral candidate Sian Berry came to our part of the city. Martyn Post, Maeve Tomlinson and I met Sian at Hackbridge station.

We took a couple of photos in the pouring rain, which are in this news story in the Sutton Guardian and then made our way to Beddington Lane tram stop to meet others.

It was at this point that the visit ended up inadvertently revealing two important issues:

1) One of our group said that she had walked up to a Viridor 'information office' on her last visit to Beddington Farmlands. So, we wandered along the road towards the site [see road in the picture above]. As we approached the end of the pavemented section of the road, we were greeted by someone I thought was a random Viridor employee. He turned out to be Andrew Turner, part of Viridor's PR machine. Inside Croydon has written about this here.

2) The foundation work being done on the new waste plant has brought home a realisation of just how close the incinerator is to the main road -Beddington Lane. The crane and excavation equipment is just a couple hundred yards behind, Green Party GLA candidate for Sutton and Croydon, Tracey Hague.

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Tags croydon, greenparty