Page 3814 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 24 August 2011
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Further to this, let me read into Hansard the response I got to a question taken on notice after the estimates hearing entitled “fire risk of resource recovery facility timber piles”:
Officers from ACT Property Group (ACTPG) conducted a site inspection of all tenancies (approximately 50 in total) on 23 December 2009. As a result of this inspection, follow up letters were sent later that day to 20 of the tenants with sites that were identified as requiring clean-up.
A further inspection of all sites was conducted on 25 February 2010 with an ESA (Fire Brigade) representative present. There was a noted improvement from the previous site visit, however four tenancies required further action. Discussions have been held with tenants concerning the poor state of their tenancies and the need to rectify such matters.
ESA and ACTPG discussed that a thorough risk management plan of the entire Parkwood site should be conducted. ESA are further looking into this and will advise ACTPG on progress. ACTPG mentioned that this would build a good case to issue several tenants with an ‘improvement notice’ pursuant to the relevant section of the Emergencies Act 2004.
A follow-up site inspection was conducted on 5 May 2010 and ACTPG officers again advised several tenants of concerns over the state of their sites and requested rectification of the site. Tenants were advised that further inspections would occur and that ESA are likely to be involved.
ACTPG has requested advice from the ACT Government Solicitor’s Office on the termination of licences for two of the tenants.
That answer was in response to a question taken on notice, No 451, from the 2010 estimates hearing.
The government was aware of fuel issues at the estate. An operator at the estate told me about stockpiles on his property, but also on neighbouring properties. I believe this gentleman also shared those concerns verbally with the government. In fact, I have seen an ACT Fire Brigade improvement notice issued to a former tenant stating that the occupier must take actions to reduce the risk hazard, including things such as the timber pile must be reduced to smaller piles of no more than 20 metres in diameter, a clear space of no less that 20 metres in diameter is to be created to move material to in the event of a fire, the surrounding access road is to be made suitable for large water tank access and to be 10 metres wide at all points and the surrounding track must form a complete loop that can be accessed or exited from either end by a large water tanker.
The above recommendations were made to one operator that I know of a couple of years ago. These recommendations were made because of the large stockpiles of mixed timber and other combustible materials. Given there was more than one operator at the site with wood stockpiles, I think it would be interesting to know if other Fire Brigade improvement notices were issued to other tenants, especially the site in question where the fire occurred on the weekend. I hope that the government treated all tenants equally and was concerned with the fire risk at each site at the
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