The safety saga enveloping Cronulla’s new playground has taken a bizarre turn as councillors blame an elderly woman for walking into a trampoline and a shopkeeper for adjusting CCTV cameras to film accidents.
The Herald last week revealed Sutherland Shire Council had received a dozen complaints about the safety of the playground, where people fell into in-ground trampolines and at least two children were burnt on scorching metal plates the council had used to cover them during repairs.
During a debate about a proposed report into the playground’s safety at a council meeting this week, councillors Carol Provan and Carmelo Pesce, who was the mayor until the September elections when he lost the Liberal Party nomination, minimised the safety issues and questioned the motives of those who raised them.
Provan, who last week claimed another recorded incident was a “set-up”, said an elderly woman who fell into a trampoline – and was sent to hospital with a broken nose – only did so because she was distracted.
“The rest of the story [is] that she was on her mobile phone and apologised for causing disruption around [her]. She fell over while on her mobile phone and that’s terrible,” she told councillors.
In the same meeting, Pesce accused a shopkeeper “from a specific shop” of adjusting a security camera’s position to face the playground to capture the incidents, especially one in which an elderly man in a mobility scooter drove into the trampoline.
Sutherland Shire councillors Carol Provan, left, and former mayor Carmelo Pesce, right.
The footage, revealed by the Herald last week, shows the man wedged between the ground and his scooter before being helped up, and then proceeding to get stuck on another section of the playground.
“The only footage [of the incident] came from a specific shop,” Pesce said. “That particular camera never faces that area. Before the incident, it doesn’t face that area [nor] after the incident. So maybe you question why that actually happened.”
The footage came from the cafe Kafenio’s security cameras, and owner Jason Bailey said the allegations were baseless.
“We’ve been here for 21 years, the cameras have been in for at least 20, for obvious security purposes,” he said. “It’s been facing the same direction forever.”
In response, Pesce said: “I never said it was them … I never mentioned any business, any name, any shop.
“Cameras shouldn’t be facing into a playground. You’re filming children. I wouldn’t want my kids to be filmed.”
As for children being burnt on metal plates covering the broken trampolines, Provan told colleagues it was up to parents to check equipment before letting children play.
“Most mothers would not let their children play on the whale’s tail if it’s very hot down there.
“Things are looking really good in Cronulla, and it’s a very sad day when certain people just cause a lot of drama for no good reason just for spite.”
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