Image: Member for Balmain, Kobi Shetty. Bianca de Marchi, AAP Image
by GRACE JOHNSON
The remediation and reopening of Rozelle Parklands has been pushed back a month, sparking outrage across the community.
The Environment Protection Agency (EPA) abandoned their original deadline of February 29 and granted overnight a month-long extension to Transport for NSW.
Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne has been particularly critical, saying granting the extension leaves the EPA looking like “a toothless tiger”.
“This is not a high school history assignment in which you ask for more time, this is a public safety threat that should have been cleaned up before now,” he said.
“A commuter who got fined trying to navigate traffic at the Rozelle interchange wouldn’t get a waiver so why are Transport, John Holland and CPB being let off the hook?”
Member for Balmain Kobi Shetty also shared her disappointment, saying “The community is rightly outraged about this delay.”
“It is incredibly frustrating news after we have waited so long for this park to be opened – to then have it open for less than a month before it was shut down.”
“I’ll continue pressing the NSW government to make sure the park and the important shared paths through it can be opened as soon as possible,” she continued. “We need to determine how this contamination happened and what can be done in future to prevent similar incidents.”
After discovering friable asbestos in an area of the parklands that was meant to have already been remediated, the Inner West Mayor said the contractors were “clearly” off-track in removing the contaminated mulch.
Last Friday, in light of clean-up being behind schedule, the council launched legal proceedings against John Holland and CPB in an effort to hold the contractors accountable.
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