The Beddington energy recovery facility is finally going ahead.

After a long and, in my opinion, over-heated gestation, we should welcome this green birth.

Viridor, which will be building and operating the £200m plant to serve the South London Waste Partnership, will be engaging with residents during the construction phase of the project.

This is good news, so let us make sure that they, together with the council, do what they say and our community becomes aware of the considerable advantages.

These include 26MW of electricity generation, savings to Sutton taxpayers of £49m and a significant reduction in our borough’s carbon footprint.

Our eyes remain off the ball regarding global warming.

We are heading for a 4C global average temperature rise by 2100 unless we reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

This will be cataclysmic and is the biggest existential threat we face, and we are not doing enough mitigation, so every reduction will help.

Refuse incineration helps and is nowadays high tech and not harmful.

Emissions are monitored stringently and controlled so that the potential atmospheric pollution risks are negligible.

This project sounds to me like a good deal for all of us in Sutton, so let us support it.

CHRISTOPHER ROBERTS

Sutton