The "final obstacle" to the £1bn incinerator that will burn hundreds of thousands of tonnes of rubbish a year has been cleared after a judge threw out an attempt to appeal against the Beddington Lane plant.

The campaign against the South London Waste Partnership’s incinerator, that will take in rubbish from Croydon, Sutton, Merton and Kingston had been led by Shasha Khan, a Green Party candidate in Croydon North.

On Tuesday, April 28, in Court 63 at the Royal Courts of Justice, that campaign looked to be dead in the water after Mr Khan’s barrister Ned Westaway failed to persuade Lord Justice Sales of the merit of the campaigners’ case.

It was seen as the last remaining barrier before construction of the energy recovery facility, which will need 666 trucks a day each and every day to ship about 300,000 tonnes of waste to the site every year.

Waste company Viridor have indicated they will now look to begin construction on the controversial plant this summer.

Mr Khan, who forced a judicial review of the plans before taking his challenge to the High Court, said the ruling was legally "pretty much end of the road" before pledging to continue fighting until construction began.

Mr Khan, said: "I’m down, upset. I feel so sorry for everybody that is going to suffer.

"We have to somehow carry on this fight.

"Legal options seem to have been exhausted now but we won’t stop fighting the incinerator.

"As far as we are concerned until a spade in the ground laying down the foundations we won’t stop the fight. Nobody will give up now."

He indicated the group would look into further options including taking the matter to the European Court of Human Rights.

The application revolved around three separate arguments they believed showed Sutton Council, the local authority that had originally granted permission in March 2014, had been wrong.

Mr Westaway suggested that with the land due to be transformed into the Wandle Valley Regional Park from 2023, Sutton had failed to properly demonstrate there were 'very special circumstances’ for building the £1bn burner on Metropolitan Open Land.

He added the environmental impact of pipelines, to provide heat to nearby homes at the as-yet unbuilt Felnex site, had not been properly assessed.

Lord Justice Sales refused the campaigners application to appeal on all three grounds.

Justice Sales said the campaigners "had no real probability of success in relation to any of their grounds and there was no other compelling reason" offered as to why they should be allowed to appeal.

A spokesman for Sutton Council said: "The court’s decision confirms that the planning decision making process was followed correctly by Sutton Council in its role as the local planning authority.

"We will ensure that the development of the Energy Recovery Facility by Viridor is undertaken in accordance with the planning permission."

A spokesman for Viridor referred to the decision as "the final obstacle" stopping "a much-needed, long-term alternative solution to landfill".

The spokesman said: "We can now engage with our construction partners to start the necessary final design and preparation works for construction to begin later this summer."