COCKBURN mayor Logan Howlett says he was staggered to find planks of wood with 10cm nails sticking out of them, right next to the road in Port Coogee.

Builders had chucked the planks into a sprawling pile of rubbish while working on a luxury home in the ritzy development—it’s a growing problem across the growing city says the mayor.

“What about any kids playing around here? They wouldn’t leave this around in their own place, so why would they just dump it here,” the mayor says, incredulously.

Cockburn’s local laws require builders to provide bins for rubbish, but there are almost none in Port Coogee which instead features pile after pile of rubbish. Fast food containers, plastic wrapping and cardboard are hurled in as well, much of it blowing onto neighbouring properties or the bushy ridge above the development which resembles a landfill site.

• Cockburn mayor Logan Howlett says the city is cracking down on rubbish piles left by builders. Photo by Steve Grant

Enough is enough, says the mayor.

“People living in their homes should not have to put up with rubbish from adjoining or nearby construction sites and I encourage those affected to report the matter to the city,” he says.

The council has issued $9000 in infringements in the past year, but the mayor jokes his rangers could probably triple that with a morning’s stroll through Port Coogee.

Then there’s the old Watsonia site, Mayor Rise, Munster, Atwell, Cockburn Central … Cockburn has a serious rubbish problem.

The mayor says there was even one case of a builder throwing rubbish down a chute from the second floor of a building straight onto the footpath. Many people also use vacant lots to ditch leftover bricks or an unwanted barrowload of cement, putting the onus on the land owner to clean it up.

Mr Howlett warns builders the penalties are getting higher, noting one was fined $6500 for not providing a bin.

by STEVE GRANT