Carnes Hill community centre: Liverpool Council to replace combustible cladding

A southwest Sydney council is set to cough up $250,000 after combustible cladding was discovered on a seven-year-old library and community centre, prompting a councillor to ask “how did we miss this?”.

Combustible cladding has been found at library and community centre at the Carnes Hill Community and Recreation Precinct

A southwest Sydney council is set to cough up $250,000 after combustible cladding was discovered on a seven-year-old library and community centre, prompting a councillor to ask “how did we miss this?”.

Liverpool Council received a referral from the NSW Cladding Task Force after Fire and Rescue NSW found aluminium composite panels (ACP) in the facade of the library and community centre building at the Carnes Hill Community and Recreation Precinct.

Aluminium composite panels with more than 30 per cent polymer are a banned product and cannot be used on future buildings as fire can spread quickly.

Council has committed $250,000 from the 2023/2024 budget to replace the panels.

A council spokesman said the funds would be used to prepare design and documentation, remove and replace the panels.

The recreation precinct opened in 2016 and was home to a library, Black Elk cafe and an indoor sporting and recreational centre named after former Australian cricket captain Michael Clarke.

Combustible cladding has been found at the Carnes Hill Community and Recreation Precinct

Ned Mannoun turned over some soil when construction began on the $30m Carnes Hill Recreation Precinct.

The centre was built $7m under budget, costing $35m. A report conducted by a fire safety engineer found no ACP was inside the recreation building.

Liverpool councillor and Leppington MP Nathan Hagarty questioned council during Thursday’s meeting on how this “big beautiful building we love to talk about” was missed during previous cladding checks.

Combustible cladding has been found at the Carnes Hill Community and Recreation Precinct

“For the last few years, we’ve been going around looking at buildings working with Fire and Rescue and slapping orders on private buildings yet the whole time we had cladding on one of our buildings,” he said. “How did we miss this?”

When Mr Hagarty asked if other council buildings were affected, director of planning and compliance Lina Kakish said there was “always an opportunity for Fair Trading to put forward any other buildings” for investigation.

“While we have commenced auditing of the buildings that have been identified, there might be an opportunity for something further to be notified to us in future,” she said.

“So far, no other current buildings have been identified with non-compliant ACP,” the spokesman said.

Combustible cladding has been found at the Carnes Hill Community and Recreation Precinct

Mr Hagarty told council to consider auditing buildings constructed before flammable cladding was banned by the NSW Government.

“I don’t want to be here, one month, two months, three months when we’ve got a tragedy that we could have prevented,” he said.

A council spokesman said the replacement of the panels would be completed by the end of the year, weather permitting.

According to council documents, failure to replace the ACP could lead to a fine up to $1.1m and may damage the council’s reputation.

After the June 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London, the NSW Government established the NSW Cladding Taskforce, which banned ACP with a core greater than 30 per cent in 2018.