RESIDENTS living in Carrington Heights are angered by the all too frequent burst pipes in the area.
A resident, who asked not to be named, said the level of “service” is totally unacceptable as taps ran dry in her area at about 4.45pm on Thursday, and water was only restored just before 11.30am on Saturday. She said there have been many other water outages in the area recently.
“For the more than 24 hours since we had no water, the Call Centre could not give any indication as to when we could expect the service to be restored, and this is the second 24 hour outage in less than two weeks. I have been informed that construction in the Savage Street and Grosvenor Road area is causing the problem, but this isn't a satisfactory answer – why can't the work be done without damaging the water pipes? Also, why do repairs take so long? Are the contractors adequately trained and supervised?” she said.
The resident said relevant people need to be reminded that as the representatives of a “caring city”, they should take residents' need for water seriously.
Responding to this issue, ward councillor Martin Meyer said the Water Department has acknowledged that their response times have slowed down due to the excessive pressure on the department due to the water shut downs and drought.
“The department is looking at measures to improve this, and the DA, at the last meeting of the Human Settlements and Infrastructure committee, supported these measures. But again this speaks to the bigger problem that the city's current approach to the water crisis is not sufficient to address the problems we are facing as a city. The frequents bursts and slow response times are seeing us lose more and more water,” he said.
Meyer said with the city's water losses standing at over 41 per cent, the city must do more to address the water issues quicker.
