Two Beddington councillors clashed once again as the they locked horns at a full council meeting over air quality and environmental issues in Sutton.

Their debate boiled over as their discussion on air pollution targets in the northern part of Beddington Lane became heated at times.

Cllr Manuel Abellan, Sutton Council’s environment and neighbourhood committee chair, was asked by Cllr Nick Mattey about how the committee will tackle potential damage to residents from air pollution.

This was after he cited two reports – one which was a summary of sustainable transport strategy targets, published in June, and one from charity Cancer Research UK.

However, as they were not directly shared to him at full council, Cllr Abellan wanted to see the specific documents before commenting on the matters - though he invited the councillor to send them to him.

Cllr Mattey insisted he sent the report to all of Sutton’s councillors, including the committee chair, and “can’t see how you [Abellan] can say you’re not aware of it” as a result.

But it was following his supplementary question that tensions raised.

Cllr Abellan, of Beddington South, said: “You say you sent them [the reports] to me by email: if I do a search of how many emails I've had from you - and we've had from you - in the last four years I think it's 400 or 500. So, which email?

“I want to be able to debate with you but we have to debate in objective reality here, not in distorted facts and conspiracy theories and so on. It feels very much that over the last four years.

“If I say this is a table, you'll turn back and say that it's an elephant.”

The council report which was mentioned states, for 2017, the annual mean for concentration was 31µg/m3, the concentration of air per cubic meter, whereas the target was 27µg/m3.

In addition, in the same area, the “annual exceedances of daily mean were 21 whereas the target was 14”.

Cllr Mattey, of Beddington North, said he obtained the data from a document which was discussed at an environment and neighbourhood committee on June 28.

The response to his question was that 2017's data for Beddington Lane North, from the continuous air quality monitoring station, showed that levels of PM 10 particulates did not exceed national air quality levels.

These are the recommended levels set under the Local Air Quality Management regime, according to Cllr Abellan.

This was also the same for the smaller particles (PM 2.5).

The committee chair continued that the council’s five-year air quality action plan is currently under review before it will be published next spring.

Mr Mattey queried what the effect of the controversial £205 million incinerator will be when it’s launched in October “within a few hundred metres of people’s homes”.

Mr Abellan said: “We’ve had reports from Public Health England, the Environment Agency, European legislation, the Greater London Authority has approved, and the Secretary of State.

“You’re asking me as a lead member to say, ‘let’s disregard that and let’s listen to Cllr Mattey, he’s an expert. His late-night Google searches are the way we should make policy and make decisions.’”

He told Mr Mattey to "operate within objective reality" before others waded into the row.