‘We’ll do better’: NSW transport boss apologises for missed email on Rozelle parklands asbestos

Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP

The head of Transport for New South Wales has admitted it wasn’t good enough that it took a week for the department to respond to reports of potential asbestos in mulch at the Rozelle parklands.

The TfNSW coordinator general, Howard Collins, said the department was “so grateful” to the member of the public who alerted the agency to the asbestos contamination on 2 January.

The email was missed, however, due to the Christmas break and did not reach the correct team for almost a week.

“We’ll do better next time,” Collins told reporters on Friday.

“It was unfortunate that this discovery was over a holiday period but it’s not good and … it is transport’s responsibility to ensure if someone flags something we deal with it.”

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said on Friday he was “shocked” by what had happened at the park – describing the contamination as “extraordinary”.

So far, 17 samples of mulch from around the area have returned positive for bonded asbestos.

“Getting it cleaned up properly is a priority because of people’s safety,” Albanese said.

“You don’t want your young boy or girl playing in a playground that’s risky to them. I just want people to have access to it as soon as possible because open space is a real priority.”

Albanese said it was “reasonable” for the cleanup to take until the end of February.

However, the Inner West mayor, Darcy Byrne, was concerned that contractors were “not acting urgently enough”.

“Almost two weeks after the discovery of asbestos contamination throughout the parklands and in other locations across Rozelle, John Holland and CPB have yet to inform our local community about their plans to clean up the contamination and reopen the parklands,” he said on Friday.

“These contractors, who have profited enormously from the project, have not provided any information to local residents or even bothered to pick up the phone and engage with Inner West council.”

A draft remediation plan is being worked up by the main contractor John Holland.

Once it meets the criteria set out by the NSW Environment Protection Authority’s clean-up notice, work will begin to remove the contaminated mulch and replace it.

Traffic on the spaghetti junction below the parklands is expected to ramp up as people return to work and school over the coming weeks.

Collins on Friday warned Sydney commuters to expect more delays following the disastrous opening of the Rozelle interchange late last year.

“People can expect that there will be delays – they will be minimised,” Collins said.

The senior transport executive said travel times between the inner-west and the city would “hopefully” be between 10 and 20 minutes but he suggested trips could take longer during periods of peak congestion.

He said the department was doing everything it could to avoid a repeat of the traffic chaos that ensued when the interchange – which squeezes 10 lanes of traffic into four before the Anzac Bridge – opened.

The agency would meet requests from locals to reinstate the right-hand turn off Johnston Street onto The Crescent in Annandale to allow motorists to turn around if they didn’t want to wait in a queue to get onto the Anzac Bridge, Collins said.

“That work will be done and completed by the beginning of next month.”

Collins thanked motorists who were using the new, toll-free Iron Cove link to bypass Victoria Road for freeing up the main thoroughfare for local traffic heading to the bridge.

“That is now allowing those people who’ve got incarcerated in Balmain, for sometimes over an hour, to get out onto Victoria Road and head to the city,” he said.

John Holland and CPM were contacted for comment.