IMPROVEMENTS at the controversial Crossness sewage sludge incinerator, promised under a court agreement two years ago, are finally in place.

Thames Water, which owns the sewage works in Belvedere Road, Abbey Wood, says the final stage of the work, required in a court judgement, came into operation on Monday.

A lime treatment plant has been installed to treat excess sewage which the incinerator cannot deal with, so it can be taken off-site in lorries and used for agricultural fertiliser.

When Bexley Council took Thames Water to court in 2004 over the smells from the sewage works, the company revealed its £60m sludge incinerator could not cope.

The company admitted soon after the incinerator became operational in 1999, it realised the sewage it was meant to burn was too wet to be treated.

Four plate presses, meant to squeeze out the water before incineration, could not cope either and became distorted.

As a result, the company began storing unprocessed sludge cakes in the open, causing bad smells during a period of two years which led to the prosecution.

A series of other minor improvements have been made to the plant and Thames Water says recent bad smells were only a temporary glitch caused by bringing forward maintenance work.

It says it shut down one of the two waste streams which feed the incinerator to replace failed heat exchanger tubes which turn the heat into steam to help power the incinerator.

As a result, it was forced to remove untreated sludge cakes from the site in up to eight covered lorries a day, during a two-week period.

That operation stopped on August 14.

Erith and Thamesmead MP John Austin, who lives close to the site, says he hopes Thames Water will live up to its promises the area will now be largely free of the smell of sewage.

The company said: "The hot and still weather recently led to a small, temporary increase in odour.

"It is not possible to make any sewage treatment works odour-free but we have made major changes which have helped minimise smells."