Southland traders, shoppers want action taken on foul stink invading stores

A mysterious substance bubbling up from underneath Southland shopping centre’s carpark is creating a putrid stench in stores. And, after months of little action, shoppers and traders have had enough.

Customers and staff at Southland shopping centre have kicked up a stink as a mysterious odour continues to repulse visitors. Picture: Valeriu Campan

Customers and staff at Southland shopping centre have kicked up a stink as a mysterious odour continues to repulse visitors.

Shopper Svetlana D’Art said she noticed a foul smell and leakage coming from overhead sewer pipes when walking out to her car at Westfield Southland’s ground level car park near Chesterville Rd in May.

Ms D’Art, who uses the carpark five times a week and walks to work nearby, took photos of a wet substance on the asphalt, and believes the pipes are spitting out sewerage.

She said despite numerous calls since she first noticed the smell, centre management continued to ignore the stench.

“I have contacted Southland five times and reported the issue … every time I rang they told me a plumber was on the way to fix it, this clearly isn’t true,” she said.

“This is a huge biohazard and a danger to community health.”

Pipes seem to be leaking a stinky substance at Southland shopping centre. Picture: Facebook

Staff who work on the Woolworths side of the shopping centre said they started to notice a strange odour inside the centre in May. But, despite multiple visits from centre management, the problem has not been fixed.

Beauty therapist Samantha Holland said workers at the string of shops near Aldi and Woolworths were being forced to continually apologise to customers when they noticed the smell.

“Customers mention it all the time, they probably smell it more than we do now because we’re used to it. They always ask ‘what’s that smell?’ and we have to apologise … it’s quite embarrassing,” she said.

“It smells like mouldy, musky old pipes … you can really notice it at the supermarket, too.”

She said Westfield representatives had been sent to investigate the smell but the shops already used diffusers to mask the stench which made the problem less noticeable.

Ms D’Art said the leaking sewer pipes and bad smell were just a few of many issues outside in the “filthy” carpark.

“The ground is also extremely greasy … I notice all of these things because I work for a building company,” she said.

“We are paying to use this carpark so they have to supply good facilities in return … at the moment it’s filthy.”

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Kingston councillor Geoff Gledhill said the matter should be investigated by the EPA.

“The carpark is private property owned by Westfield … they can’t allow a situation such as this to continue,” he said.

“If they are not responding, then contact with the EPA is the next step.”

A Westfield Southland spokesperson said the liquid looked to be condensation from refrigerant pipes that “keep the freezers for one of our fresh food retailers cold”.

He said they had contacted the retailer, which they didn’t name, and organised a plumber to inspect the pipes.

They had also organised “industrial-scale” cleaning of the smelly areas of the shopping centre, and continued to work with retailers to monitor the issue, he said.