Councillors decide tonight whether 12.6 hectares of promised acid grassland can be dropped at Beddington Farmlands. Officers say yes. 61 of 65 comments object.
Sutton’s planning committee meets tonight with one application in front of it. It asks councillors to accept that 12.6 hectares of habitat promised at Beddington Farmlands will never be built.
The application is DM2024/00199, from Valencia Waste (Thames) Ltd. It covers 88.4 hectares of the former landfill off Beddington Lane. Officers recommend that councillors grant it.
The committee sits at 7pm at the Civic Offices on St Nicholas Way. The agenda carries no other application.
What is being dropped
The restoration plan already approved for the site requires acid grassland and lowland heath across 12.60 hectares in the centre of the farmlands. The new application replaces that with species-rich meadow grassland.
The officer report gives the reason plainly. It says the change is being made “due to the technical challenges associated with delivering the former”, and that it “is not practical or desirable for the grassland to be acidic” (Committee Report, DM2024/00199).
The application also asks for:
- a single-storey agricultural building of 900 square metres, with four parking spaces
- a detached external housing control unit
- wider vehicle crossovers, plus vehicle and pedestrian access gates
- security and predator fencing, and seating
- a revised restoration plan with a series of enforceable deadlines in place of one
The report says all habitats are expected to be in the aftercare phase by 2029.
The deadline that has already passed
The legal position is the part the report does not soften. Condition 42 part c of permission D2015/72898/FUL says: “Final restoration of the site is to be completed on or before 31st December 2023.”
That condition was carried forward from the original 2005 permission, which set the same date. The restoration was not completed. Enforcement action was taken over the earlier permission, though the report says a later reserved matters permission superseded it.
The site passed to Valencia Waste Management in 2021, when Viridor sold off all its landfill interests.
The council cannot currently reach the money
A bond was meant to guarantee the work. It expired in June 2024.
Valencia confirmed on 29 November 2024 that it is responsible for renewing the index-linked security. As at 13 August 2025, £2,338,678.57 sat in a Cash Collateral Trust with Kroll Agency Trustees Ltd, as agent for Valencia, at BNP Paribas.
The report then states the problem: “there is currently no appropriate legal mechanism enabling the Council to access these funds in the event of non-compliance.”
Officers want that fixed through a new section 106 agreement, to be completed by 31 March 2027. They add that the £2.33 million “should therefore be regarded as the current level of funds held, rather than the final agreed level of security”, and that a higher figure may be required once the works are properly costed.
The heads of terms officers want secured include:
- a full-time Ecological Restoration Manager dedicated to the site
- equipment for managing and maintaining the site in perpetuity
- staff to run public access, gates and seasonal restrictions
- funding for the Conservation and Access Committee to audit what Valencia actually spends
- a monitoring fee for the council to review the ecological reports
- a replacement bond
What the objectors say
Sixty-five representations were received. Sixty-one object, one supports and three are neutral.
The objectors are not only neighbours. They include the Wandle Valley Forum, the Beddington Farmlands Bird Group, CPRE London, and the Hackbridge and Beddington Corner Neighbourhood Development Group. The London Wildlife Trust filed neutral comments.
Their main points, as summarised in the report:
- there is no mitigation, and no financial compensation, for losing the acid grassland and heathland
- the biodiversity baseline is wrong, because it measures against the site as it is now rather than as it was before the landfill
- a further five-year delay to public access is unacceptable
- a 2.30pm closing time is too early compared with other reserves
- the permissive path should be resurfaced along its full length so it is usable 364 days a year
- a full Environmental Impact Assessment is missing
- the record of delivery so far does not support trusting the new timetable
The Beddington Farmlands Bird Group also opposes dog walking and angling on the reserve, and questions whether the bond money is still enough.
The biodiversity argument, and the EIA the council lost
Biodiversity net gain became mandatory on 12 February 2024 under the Environment Act 2021. Schemes must deliver at least 10% more biodiversity than the baseline.
Officers accept the current on-site baseline rather than a historic one. On that basis they report an uplift of over 30%, well above the statutory minimum, maintained for at least 60 years through the section 106.
Objectors say that is the wrong yardstick. Measuring against habitats that only exist because the landfill was there, they argue, rewards the under-delivery. Officers reply that reconstructing a pre-development baseline would need evidence that is unlikely to exist, and would not necessarily produce a better outcome on the ground.
There is a second point worth recording. In 2023 the council decided the proposal needed an Environmental Impact Assessment. The applicant went to the Secretary of State, who ruled that it is not EIA development. The report notes that this “is the final decision, overriding the Council’s original decision.”
Access, trees and consultees
The earlier plan promised roughly seven hides, about 2,900 metres of footpath and about 1,500 metres of cycleway. By 2019 four bird hides, cycle paths and fencing had been delivered, along with new wet grassland.
The revised scheme sets out six access routes. Only one, the existing permissive path along the western boundary and around the southern lake, would be open all year. One route would be daylight hours only with automatic gates at night, one would open in summer under the warden’s control, and one would be seasonally closed during the bird breeding season.
On trees, 127 were surveyed. One category B and 15 category C trees or groups would go, 111 would be retained, and around 600 would be planted.
Natural England, the Environment Agency, Transport for London, the Greater London Authority and the council’s own flood, highways, tree and biodiversity officers all raise no objection, subject to conditions.
What it means for you
If you live in Hackbridge, Beddington or Wallington, tonight decides how the land next to you is finished and when you can walk on it.
- The meeting is at 7pm tonight at the Civic Offices, St Nicholas Way, SM1 1EA. Planning committee meetings are usually live streamed.
- Registration to speak closed at midday today. Speakers get four minutes, at the chair’s discretion.
- You can still comment on applications through the council’s planning register. We explain how that works on our Sutton planning applications page.
- If permission is granted, nothing is issued until the section 106 agreement is signed and the council is satisfied the financial security is in place. That is the point at which the money question gets answered.
- The next planning committee dates are published on the council’s meetings calendar.
The application has been with the council for 127 weeks and three days. Whichever way tonight goes, the site’s original completion deadline passed over two and a half years ago.
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