Poison playgrounds plan

By DION TEASDALE
SHIRE of Yarra Ranges councillors voted unanimously last week to accept recommendations for the management and replacement of potentially poisonous playground equipment on council owned land.
The adopted recommendations include a commitment to gradually replace copper chrome arsenate (CCA) treated timber playground equipment at 29 preschools and 17 Maternal and Child Health (MCH) centres across the shire.
The shire has undertaken to replace the CCA treated timber equipment, a job that is estimated to cost close to $400,000, over the course of the next decade with a $50,000 budget allocation annually.
The council adopted the recommendation at its meeting last Tuesday, 9 August, after concerns about the longterm health risks of contact with CCA treated playground equipment were raised by parents with children attending a Healesville kindergarten.
Chum Creek resident Linda Fabb, whose child attends the Queens Park Kindergarten in Healesville, has been campaigning for the shire to remove CCA treated playground equipment from council land since the beginning of the year.
Ms Fabb said she was happy to see the matter on the council agenda, and pleased the shire had committed to replacing CCA treated timber from centres shirewide.
“I’m pleased that council are taking a stand on this. This is a very positive step in the right direction,” she said.
“I’m also pleased to see that the council’s action won’t be just confined to the three centres in Healesville and that it will include Maternal and Child Health (MCH) centres.”
However, Ms Fabb has continued her call for the shire to reduce the timeline for replacing the playground equipment.
“The replacement rate the shire is working on could mean the equipment remains at some centres for another eight to 10 years and this is putting children at risk for an unnecessarily long period of time,” she said.
Ms Fabb said she would continue campaigning for faster replacement of playground equipment and would work with the shire.
Shire of Yarra Ranges mayor Dave Hodgett conceded the rate of replacement was moderate but said the shire would be investigating ways to speed it up.
“We take this matter very seriously and are trying to take a leadership role. We would like to do as much as possible in the shortest possible time,” he said.
“If we can bump up the rate of replacement we will, and we will be looking for ways to do this. We would like to get some financial assistance from the State Government,” he said.
Mr Hodgett said the shire would look at making a formal approach to the Department of Human Services for dollarfordollar funding.