City plans new substation

LOCAL minister, Reverend Dean Meistre has expressed his shock and concern after eThekwini Municipality failed to consult with the church over a piece of ground the Glenwood Community Church has rented from the city for the past 20 years which is used by parishioners for parking.

According to Meistre, an agreement has been in place between the church and the municipality for the church to use the piece of land opposite it in Clark Road for parking.

“The council fenced the land off and the church has maintained the land for the past 20 years, paying every year for the use of the land,” said Rev Meistre.

He said on Monday last week a bulldozer and workers arrived and took the keys to the gate on the property and on Tuesday he received a call to say the church would no longer have access to the land. He said he was also saddened to see workers cutting down the trees that they had tried to hard to maintain.

“I appreciate the municipality is the owner of the property, but there was no forewarning or consultation with us, so that we could at least know we would have to make arrangements to find more parking. Our soccer team will also have to find somewhere else to play now,” he said.

The municipality plans to build a substation on the land, which is owned by the electricity department.

“I am concerned about the environmental impact of this. People living in the flats next to the land have called to say they are not happy about it. We want to know the environmental concerns, as we run a pre-school at the church. I know in Germany substations are not allowed in residential areas, do we not care in this country? I’m all for economic development, but not at the expense of people’s health. I’m also concerned over how much communication there has been with the community and whether letters have been sent to people in the nearby vicinity,” he said.

Meistre said they had paid the rent and had just been invoiced for this year. The municipality would look at reimbursing them.

“We had to tell our congregation that the ground is no longer available for parking. At least if we had had notice we could’ve made a contingency plan. We had an open night last week for parents of children attending our holiday club, and had to pack the roads around the church with cars. Max Prop has offered us the sue of their parking on a Sunday morning, for which we are very grateful. We are going to have to look at the possibility of hiring a security company with car guards in future,” he said.

Responding to a query from Berea Mail, ward councillor for Glenwood and Umbilo, Nicole Graham, said the city’s plan to build a new substation on the land had been in the pipeline since 2013. “This is because the current substation is older and causes the blackouts which sometimes become quite frequent in Glenwood. The construction should begin within the next two weeks,” she said.

Tozi Mthethwa, head of communications at eThekwini Municipality, said: “The site at the corner of Bulwer Road and Clark Road is for the new 132/11 kV Bulwer substation which will serve to improve the quality of supply to the area. It will decommission the aged 33/6,6 kV Glenwood substation, and cater for future growth and serve to reinforce the high voltage electricity grid.”

She said an environmental impact assessment is not required in terms of the National Environmental Management Act.
“All communities are consulted on new build projects during the annual Integrated Development Plan/Budget Consultation Meetings, which are held across the Municipality,” she said.