A LACK of service delivery has residents in and around Suffolk Road in lower Glenwood convinced they have been forgotten by the municipality.
Resident Angie Stephen said the municipality had failed to address a number of issues in Suffolk Road and surrounding roads for many years and urged ward councillor, Mmabatho Tembe, to push for more attention from the city in the area.
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“There is an open piece of land where a company, which was running a container business, was shut down. The gates to the property have since been stolen and now people are dumping on the property. We had an issue where people were squatting there and Metro Police had to remove them. Driving schools are also using the site for parking lessons and at night it is used as a convenient space for motorists to park once they have picked up a prostitute,” she said.
Other concerns include the overgrown verges in Suffolk, Eaton, Lincoln and Franks Roads, as well as a lane which is used to connect the road to Umbilo Road, but has since been closed off due to the overgrowth and illegal dumping.
“This is council property. This issue has been ongoing for years, but nothing is done about it. A few years ago the former ward councillor, Nicole Graham, brought a team from Parks to clean up, but this was the last time anything was done. There are rats and snakes and children from Lantern Heath play on the property alongside this lane. The roads need to be cleaned up, my husband cleans outside in our road every day, but how much can one man do?” she asked.
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Stephen also raised the issue of a school on the corner of Suffolk Road which had opened two months ago, without residents being notified of the plans.
“No one was informed and we were given no opportunity to object to this,” she said, adding that recently a young teenager had gone into labour and given birth on the sidewalk. This is unacceptable,” she said.
Councillor Tembe said she had emailed Parks Department and Land Use Management regarding the concerns raised by residents and was waiting for a response.
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