What’s happening at our oval?
The Upwey school oval is covered in glass, tile shards, chunks of concrete and even asbestos.
It’s been this way for a year.
The parties involved have tried washing their hands of the mess.
And it’s taken PARENTS raising the alarm to get any progress.
Here’s what we did.
10 parents of Upwey Primary School kids banded together to write a detailed technical report presenting our evidence and proposing a solution.
We all have technical backgrounds relevant to this type of problem, so we know what we’re talking about.
Want to read it? Click the download button to jump straight to the report.
We gave the report to VicTrack and the Victorian Schools Building Authority on 12 April 2024.
We asked to be engaged with.
As of May, we have not been engaged with.
That’s why we’re publishing the report to the community. If they aren’t going to engage with us, then they sure aren’t going to tell you about the danger.
You have a right to know. To stay off the oval. And to join the fight.
“Every member of our community has a right to know about the hazard.”
How did this happen?
As part of the Belgrave Park and Ride transport upgrade project, the Victorian government asked to use the two ovals attached to Upwey High School and Upwey Primary School as temporary commuter carparking for the duration of the Belgrave carpark construction.
The high school oval would be permanently paved over. In exchange for the schools’ loss of facilities, the proposal included an offer to refurbish the primary school oval into a shared sports ground for both schools.
The ovals were removed from school use in December 2021. The completed Belgrave Park and Ride carpark was opened in December 2023. However, the remaining oval’s refurbishment has experienced… problems… and is still not in a state to be used.
As of May 2024, the oval is contaminated with construction rubble including glass shards, and asbestos. The construction rubble is likely to injure anyone using the oval for sport, and the asbestos may be causing long term health dangers to our kids.
“Our children have lost 2/3 of their grassy open space.”
Why is the oval still closed?
Image: material pulled from the surface of the oval in early March 2024. Analysis confirmed asbestos.
Two issues prevent the oval from reopening:
1. Soil contamination: the site is visibly contaminated with large quantities of glass and tile shards, concrete rubble and an unknown amount of asbestos, posing both immediate and long-term health hazards to the school children and other oval users.
2. Grass and soil quality: the grass seeding process has resulted in a poor playing surface that isn’t fit for purpose.
“We believe three big questions need answering.
1. Why was this project not managed to appropriate standards?
2. Why are parents the first to detect hazardous contamination?
3. And when will the oval be fully restored to safe use? ”
Who is FUSO?
We are made up of Upwey school parents. Many of us have technical / academic / work backgrounds that are directly relevant to the contamination.
We’ve been asked a few times: “why are you anonymous?” The simple answer is because many of us are current public servants, work directly with government, or work in jobs that would require us to get permission to use our names/titles.
We’d love to be in a position to identify ourselves, but we’re afraid that it’ll have consequences for our jobs.
“The parties responsible for administering the oval refurbishment project had multiple opportunities to do the work properly, yet haven’t. Our children are suffering as a result.
We’d rather be doing other things. We have to do this, because those who should, aren’t.”
Who’s responsible?
“How can there be chunks of glass visible on the ground and more asbestos found every week, yet the site manager insists the site is “clean”?”
As far as we can tell, 3 parties share responsibility:
The Victorian Schools Building Authority is the state government agency that owns the school land. They were in charge of negotiating the original deal on behalf of Upwey Primary and Upwey High Schools. They’re still involved now too.
VicTrack managed the construction project. They’re the state government agency that also coordinated the build of the the Belgrave car park. They still control the site.
ADCO - VicTrack’s contractor, a multi-billion dollar private company, are the ones who actually did the site works that led to the contamination. Allegedly. We’ve been told that they have repeatedly provided soil test data showing the site is “clean”. Yet they’ve also attended the site multiple times to remove rubble and dig further test pits. ADCO also has dozens of other contracts to build schools in Victoria and across Australia. They brag about it on their website.
What contaminants are present?
Asbestos
We have tested samples of cement sheet and vinyl tile that have been confirmed to contain asbestos. These samples have been provided to Upwey Primary School, and the Victorian Schools Building Authority has been notified. Parents have also been advised that a hygienist inspected the site and found and removed at least 6 other pieces of asbestos.
Read our report to learn why we don’t have confidence that this has removed all asbestos.
Glass
Shards of glass have been found every few metres on the ground. They range in size from less than 1cm up to about 5cm. All have sharp edges that could easily injure anyone who stood or fell on them. Given that the site is a sports oval, we would like to ask those in charge - would you want your kids playing sport here?
Ceramic tile
Shards of tile have been found every few metres on the ground. Like the glass shards, these are 1-5cm long with sharp edges.
Concrete rubble
By far the most commonly observed contaminant, there are hundreds if not thousands of chunks of crushed concrete littering the whole oval. This material is rock hard and sometimes jagged, and again could easily injure anyone who fell on it.
In Victoria, the type of material listed above is called construction and demolition waste.
It is classified as an industrial waste, and its disposal is strictly controlled by the Environment Protection Act 2017.
It is illegal to mix construction and demolition waste with soil and use it on a school oval.
Who wrote the report?
At the time of publishing this website, FUSO comprises about 30 parents of Upwey Primary and High School children, as well as other members of the community near to the oval.
The FUSO Technical Reference Group, who wrote the report, is made up of 10 parents who have specific professional qualifications and experience relevant to the technical aspects of the issue.
We include an asbestos assessor, a botanist, a town planner, an OHS specialist, a geologist, a media expert, and a former EPA inspector. (Sadly, not a website developer. Sorry.)
Most of the Technical Reference Group are also current or former public servants, so we intimately understand the slow nature of these types of projects. That’s why some of us have been working behind the scenes for years to get a sensible, quiet resolution to this problem.
The only reason we’re publishing the report publicly is because our community is being exposed to risk and if authorities won’t advise people, then we feel obligated to do so. We would rather be playing with our kids and enjoying our weekends.
If authorities would alert the community (or better yet, fix the problem) we’d be delighted!
Latest news
11 May 2024 - an anonymous member of the community reshared our post to popular local Facebook group The Hills & Dandenongs. We were alerted to this when we received a frustrated email from a Department of Education officer involved in the matter. The officer was concerned about the reputational risk to the school (a concern we share). At this point FUSO member Georgie joined the Facebook discussion, identifying herself as a FUSO member and the report’s author (not the FB post’s author, we hasten to add) and began answering community questions.
5 May 2024 - Since nobody from the government has engaged with us on what’s going to be done to fix the oval (despite us submitting our report nearly a month ago) we have reluctantly concluded that we have to publish this website and advise local community groups of the danger. We do this by posting to two private groups of Upwey Primary School parents; one on WhatsApp and one on Facebook.
04 May 2024 - local sports teams, unaware of the danger, are seen warming up on the oval. This is in addition to community members being seen walking dogs, running laps etc most weekends.
19 April 2024 - email reply from VicTrack acknowledges report, offers no additional information or engagement but does remind us that the oval is still under VicTrack’s control and warns us not to trespass. Click here to read the response.
15 April 2024 - FUSO member lodges EPA pollution report.
12 April 2024 - FUSO technical report submitted to VicTrack and Victorian Schools Building Authority.
Contact
Feel free to contact us with any questions. You can use this form, or use the methods below.
But remember, we’re volunteers who all have busy jobs and kids to wrangle; go easy on us if we take awhile to respond.
Email
friendsofupweyschooloval@gmail.com
In person
If you know us, come ask us questions at pickup or drop off. Georgie, Trav, Chiara, Luke, Sally, and Ryan are all happy to answer questions.
Media
At this stage, we’re still hoping that the agencies in charge of this problem engage directly with us. We’re not seeking media contact.