OPERATION Overport is well underway after ward councillor Chris Pappas met with various city officials and department representatives and took them on a walkabout on Friday to discuss issues of concern. These included roads, verges, sidewalks, lights, trees, dumping, building rubble, street lines, potholes, grass cutting, traffic, derelict buildings, storm water drains and land uses.
Roads that came under discussion included West Road, Lumi Road, South Road, Rockwood Avenue, Hope Road, Darby Road, Glenearn Road and Hartley Road.
“The Roads Department visited the area last week and made a schedule of work to do when the weather improves. This includes painting road lines, erecting new street signs, fixing stormwater drains and doing some work on the roads,” said Pappas.
He said the Electricity Department had also visited the area to check that streetlights were working and to cut back trees which were blocking lights.
Visiting the site on Friday, Garth Kloppenborg from Parks said the department had carried out some work during the week such as pruning and cleaning of dump sites. Kloppenborg addressed members of Durban Solid Waste (DSW) and DSW Education regarding the ongoing dumping which needed to be cleared and the need to educate residents in the area on illegal dumping. “The community needs to know it is unacceptable,” he said.
Environmental Health, the Building Inspectorate and Metro Police also joined the walkabout and were alerted to the number of building violations in the area.
“There are a number of illegal businesses in the area, including a bus company, a fitment and spraying business as well as a half-built property where developers are dumping rubble which is encroaching on the sidewalk,” said Pappas, adding that the responsible municipal departments needed to work together to get these businesses regulated or closed down.
“Departments such as the Economic Development and Road Development are keen to invest money in the area, but we first need to sort out these issues. We need to address the problem of large trucks using the area as they are destroying the roads and stormwater drains, and we need to start beautifying the area and changing the perception of the area before there is a buy in from Economic Development,” he said.
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