21.08.13
Press Release:
Immediate:
This evening the local Green Party has learnt that Deputy
Mayor Sir Edward Lister has given the all-clear and backed Sutton Council’s
decision to grant planning permission to build a waste incinerator in Beddington.
The plans still have to go before the Secretary of State
before any building can begin. However, today’s decision is very disappointing.
Commenting on the decision, Shasha Khan said,
“This is a rubbish decision for a rubbish incinerator by a
rubbish Mayor who is holidaying on the other side of the world. This decision
will affect the health of tens of thousands of people in London and for this
decision to be made while Boris Johnson is away just displays the arrogance of
the political elite. In ten years’ time, local elected people
will ask, what the hell were they thinking back in 2013 to approve a 302,000
tonnes capacity incinerator with a 25 year contract when other boroughs earn
money from recycling?
As Secretary of the Stop The Incinerator, I had already
spoken to the campaigns’ legal team given this was a possible outcome. We had pre-empted
this decision and will have further discussions with our solicitors about
taking this decision to judicial review.
Through the legal team, powerful reasons to reject the
application were identified. The application failed to meet London strategies
on waste, energy and climate.
I personally feel Croydon Labour Party collectively should
have mobilised, just like it does a week before an election, and got
20,000 signed objection letters sent off to the Mayor of London. Labour councillors
should have knocked on doors because the case officer had already explained
that the Mayor would gauge the level of opposition when making his decision. If
the case officer had an additional 20,000 letters piled on her desk she would
maybe have taken an alternative view. Greens have done the best we can with limited
resources to collect letters of objection.
It is the Labour voter who lives north of the borough that
will suffer with poorer health once this incinerator is built. The wards of
Broad Green, West Thornton, Thornton Heath, Selhurst and Bensham Manor are
adjacent to the site, and each of them has sitting Labour councillors with
massive majorities. These Labour councillors have taken their voters for
granted. I would feel ashamed if I was a councillor and I hadn’t gone out to
collect letters of objection.
To the perceptive observer it appears, privately, Croydon Labour don’t
mind if the incinerator is built because that is the winning ticket to take
back Waddon ward, crucial to Labours’ strategy to win back control of Croydon council in 2014.
They can now knock on doors in Waddon and tell voters that the Tory council has
built an incinerator a short distance from where they live. Their opposition has
been token and eleventh hour.
Local Greens have pledged £2000 to the Stop The Incinerator legal
fund. Despite an annual income of around £30m, Labour have already told the
Stop The Incinerator campaigners that they will not contribute financially
towards a judicial review. Maybe this is because they are not really against
incinerators in principle, unlike the Green Party. If you look across the border
in Merton, the Labour Party is in favour of the application.
In actual fact, Stop The Incinerator campaigners are personally out of
pocket because they have had to pay for legal costs. Legal work was instructed because
Croydon Labour said they would organise a fundraiser at the start of summer to
help pay the bills. This fundraiser was put back until September, September is just over two weeks away and we still haven’t heard a word about their event.”
Ends
--------------------------------------------------Tags croydon, greenparty
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