Park above Rozelle Interchange closed after asbestos discovered near playground

Rozelle Parklands, the new green space that sits on top of the Rozelle Interchange, has been closed just 24 days after it opened because a parent discovered asbestos in mulch their child brought home from the playground.

Early on Wednesday, Transport for NSW put fencing around the park with signs warning against entry after two samples of mulch from around the playground area on Tuesday afternoon were found to have traces of asbestos.

The material is bonded asbestos, which unlike friable asbestos is unlikely to release the fibres that can cause the deadly asbestosis. The building material was banned in Australia in December 2003.

But the extent of the contamination in the park is still unknown, said Transport for NSW secretary Josh Murray, whose agency is responsible for the park before it is handed to Inner West Council in November.

Dr Jeremy McAnulty, the executive director of health protection for NSW Health, said the risk of illness in people who have come in contact with the material was low.

“You need to have high levels over a period of time to be a risk,” he said. “It’s really a material that needs to be breathed in to be a risk. Touching it or just being in the area is typically not a risk.”

Investigators collect asbestos samples from Rozelle Parklands.Credit: Dean Sewell

Mulching is used in dozens of places throughout the 10-hectare park and is a “sustainability-led product”, Murray said, that contains a variety of recycled materials. Asbestos is not meant to be one of them.

Neither Transport for NSW, contractor John Holland nor landscaper HL Landscapes would say who provided the mulch.

When HL Landscapes was awarded the contract, it boasted on social media that the “scope of works includes planting over 170,000 plants and trees, supply and installation of over 12,000 square metres of pavements, placement of over 150,000 square metres of soils and mulches as well as 50,000 square metres of turf species, and installation of all park lighting, playground and fitness equipment, and street furniture”.

Roads Minister John Graham confirmed the mulch would be removed and replaced.

Murray said testing for contamination occurred before, during and after the landscaping work. Asked how asbestos ended up in the mulch, he said: “The mystery remains.”

Authorities are investigating whether an oversight in the supply process for the material is to blame.

“We need to understand how that material has turned up despite the checks, despite the accreditation, despite the approved rules that were in place of using recycled materials and mulch,” Murray said.

He promised to rectify any gap in the testing process, if there was found to be one.

“The product that has been used … is something that is regularly used in construction projects, so the mystery remains as to why there would be that [asbestos] turning up inside that project.”

Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne, whose children had been playing at the site since it opened, said his council had written to the government demanding complete testing of the entire park.

“There needs to be a thorough investigation, and if it is found that the contractors or suppliers have done the wrong thing and brought asbestos contamination into a children’s playground, then the government should throw the book at them,” he said in a press conference at the park.

After much anticipation, the park was opened on December 17 last year. The nearly 10-hectare site contains 3000 trees, bike paths, two sports fields, wetlands, barbecue facilities and exercise equipment.

The masterplan for the site was announced in late 2022. The then Coalition government promised the park would “heal a scar that has separated Sydney’s CBD from the inner west”.

Previously part of the city’s freight rail network, the park runs along the City West Link, and sits on top of the M4-M8 Link between St Peters and Haberfield connecting it to the City West Link, the Anzac Bridge, Iron Cove and the planned Western Harbour Tunnel, due by 2028.

At the park on Wednesday, locals were surprised to see the playground fenced off.

“It kind of beggars belief,” said L.J. Loch, who lives nearby and had been walking her dog at the park that morning, “that after everything we’ve been through, we end up with asbestos”.

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