Students, teachers to move as asbestos-contaminated school closes

More than 700 teachers and students will be forced to relocate from Liverpool West Public School with the clean-up of asbestos-contaminated mulch to take weeks, not days.

More than 700 Liverpool West Public School students, their teachers and other staff will be relocated to the newly-opened Gulyangarri Public School for the foreseeable future, with remediation of the site expected to take weeks — not days — amid Sydney’s growing asbestos crisis.

More than 20 sites across Sydney have now been identified as contaminated.

Students were expecting to return to the school, where mulch in the playground has tested positive to asbestos, on Thursday, But the extent of the mulch has rendered their immediate return impossible.

Education Minister Prue Car said the situation was “extremely disappointing”, and thanked the community of Gulyangarri PS for accommodating the nearby school.

“There is so much mulch to be removed … we need a couple of weeks in order to do that properly,” she said.

NSW Deputy Premier and Minister for Education and Early Learning Prue Car. Picture: NCA Newswire / Gaye Gerard

“Nothing is more important to us than the safety of our young children … and the teachers and the staff at the school.”

Ms Car said the mulch went far deeper in the soil than first expected, and would require significant excavation.

Liverpool West Public School.

Liverpool West Public School also has a preschool and support unit for children with special needs, she said.

“Bonded asbestos is not a health concern if not disturbed, but obviously we are talking about primary school children, and safety is the number one priority,” Ms Car said.

“We have no choice than to clear the school out and stand it up somewhere else.”

The Department of Education is also investigating why the building company contracted to work on Liverpool West’s upgrades used recycled mulch in the first place.

Meanwhile the NSW Environment Protection Authority’s investigation into the contaminated mulch plaguing the city’s parks and major infrasturcture projects has also been beefed up with resources from other government agencies.

EPA CEO Tony Chappel confirmed the entire supply chain is in question.

“The EPA is looking at the whole supply chain here, and that includes looking at other suppliers,” he said.

“This is a serious criminal matter, if we have the necessary evidence it will be before the courts.”

The closure comes amid news earlier today that asbestos-contaminated mulch forced organisers to pull the plug on one of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras festival’s major events.

The City of Sydney and Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras on Wednesday morning announced that their Fair Day event, to be held in Victoria Park this Sunday, will be cancelled. Mardi Gras CEO Gil Beckwith said she appreciated the offer to relocate, but the logistics of moving an event attended by over 70,000 people each year would prove impossible.

The cancellation prompted one Sydney mayor to not only offer up his council’s parks as a venue, but also called on mulch supplier Greenlife to retract an “arrogant” denial of responsibility for Sydney’s growing asbestos crisis.

Greenlife Resource Recovery Facility, the mulch manufacturer linked to 22 locations around NSW where asbestos has been found in recently placed mulch, told The Daily Telegraph through their lawyer that the company was being “unfairly maligned” over the saga. GRRF’s lawyer Ross Fox, Principal of Fishburn Watson O’Brien, yesterday said the contamination is “not my client’s problem”, a phrase Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne described as “the height of arrogance”, and “disrespectful” to the public.

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