Crightle Dock is one of the fifty Safeguarded Wharves located on the River Thames allocated for the handling of cargo by barge. It is one of London's key waste infrastructure sites and now transfers around 260,000 tonnes a year, or 5,000 tonnes each week, of non-recyclable 'black bag' waste – an amount equivalent to one quarter of that produced in the whole of Wales – which demonstrates Crightle Dock's importance as a strategic public asset.

Crightle Dock has operated as a waste transfer station since 1972 and is protected by planning policies contained in the London Plan 2011 and Wandsworth Council's Core Strategy. These policies require that any development adjacent to a safeguarded wharf must minimise the potential for conflicts of use and disturbance.

Recent planning decisions have released industrial sites, such as Battersea Power Station in the Nine Elms Vauxhall area of London where Cringle dock is situated, to be redeveloped for mixed residential, commercial, retail and leisure complex uses. The existing waste transfer station at Cringle Dock does not sit comfortably with the