Mardi Gras Fair Day cancelled as more sites confirmed
A major event on Sydney's Mardi Gras calendar has been cancelled, after asbestos was found in mulch at the park where the event was going to be held.
Transcript
00:00 You can see behind me here all that's left is a skeleton of a stage.
00:05 When we got here this morning, this whole park was set up and ready to go for people
00:09 to come and celebrate Fair Day.
00:11 It's one of the biggest events on Sydney's Mardi Gras calendar.
00:14 They were expecting up to 70,000 people to come here this weekend for Fair Day, but unfortunately
00:20 that event has had to be cancelled.
00:23 Now I spoke to some organisers earlier who said that they were heartbroken after six
00:26 months of preparation went into organising this event.
00:30 But they said it wasn't without trying.
00:32 They did, once they found those test results that showed that there was asbestos in the
00:37 mulch at the park here, they tried to get authorities through to clean out that mulch
00:41 as soon as they could, but they made the decision that the safety risk was just too great and
00:46 they had to cancel Fair Day here at Victoria Park.
00:49 Now this is one of 32 parks across Sydney that authorities are working through to check.
00:55 They'll be inspecting the mulch at these parks here and they include parks in Glebe, in Chippendale,
01:00 in Surrey Hills and at Ultimo too.
01:03 So people are being urged to stay away from mulch under trees and in garden beds in those
01:08 areas and you can find a full list of those 32 parks on Sydney City Council's website.
01:14 And Jess, a statewide audit has been announced.
01:17 What can you tell us about that?
01:18 Yes, so Gemma, after asbestos was found at Campbelltown Hospital, authorities then started
01:25 widening their search.
01:27 They're now looking at all health facilities across the state to ensure that mulch at those
01:32 facilities does not contain asbestos.
01:35 So we know that this search has been increased, they've tripled the amount of investigators
01:40 that they have from 40 to 120 and they're scanning over 100 sites across New South Wales
01:46 as well.
01:47 We've had more than 20 come back as positive for asbestos in the mulch and of course now
01:53 that authorities will continue searching, that number will probably be likely to grow.
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