City of Gosnells chief executive Ian Cowie has denied the presence of fish hooks in a Thornlie playground following a bizarre claim posted on social media earlier this week.
Yesterday a woman posted a photograph of more than 40 fish hooks and screws to a City of Gosnells neighbourhood reports facebook page, claiming she had found them that morning buried in the sand of a playground in Hunt Street.
The post received more than 100 likes and was shared more than 700 times.
Her claims were also reported on news sites today.
Mr Cowie said today there had been three calls about contaminants at the park in the past week but nothing had ever been found despite several inspections conducted by the city.
He said the first call was to report broken glass at Hunt Street reserve on October 30.
The city sent an officer to the park to inspect and rake the sandpit but nothing was found.
Another call about broken glass was received on November 4 and the same city officer inspected and raked the sandpit but again nothing was found.
Mr Cowie said the city received a call at about 11am on Thursday alerting the city to fish hooks found at the base of the slide and near the climbing frame at the park.
“The city sent an officer to the site within 20 minutes of receiving the call to examine the sand pit and playground,” he said.
“A visual inspection showed the rake marks of the previous day were still in place and so no additional raking occurred.
“The officer spoke to a local resident who was there when he arrived and she reported that she had seen nobody at the playground.
“This morning the City of Gosnells sent a maintenance crew to Hunt Street reserve to further examine the sandpit.
“No glass, fish hooks or screws were found.”
He said the City of Gosnells had arranged for contractors to carry out a mechanical sifting of the sand at the park but the process may need to be delayed slightly because of recent heavy rain.
The sand needed to be dry to properly conduct an inspection.
Mr Cowie said Hunt Street reserve was maintained by the city’s parks team fortnightly, which included sand raking.
“The sand pit is also professionally cleaned twice a year, generally at the start and end of summer,” he said.
“The city’s parks team undertakes audits of all playgrounds once every six weeks and emergency sand cleans are undertaken as required.”
Mr Cowie said if someone was found to be leaving dangerous items in a playground or materials that would cause serious injury the city would report the matter to local police.
