A RESIDENT in a block of flats which backs onto New Haven Road, Glenwood, is concerned about the waste of ratepayers’ money after the narrow, quiet road was recently retarred.
“New Haven Road is a small road and only services the flats and houses on either side, it is not a well used road by traffic and was in no way in need of any repair as the surface was absolutely fine. Somehow, the powers that be decided that the road needed retarring! We had them up and down for three weeks resurfacing the road. Stones were everywhere as they didn’t sweep up properly. Neighbouring flats had to have the automatic gates on the road repaired due to the stones getting lodged in the gate rail which caused damage to the motor,” said Vivienne McCance-Price.
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She and other residents said they didn’t understand the need to retar the road when there are others such as Che Guevara, Vause, Springfield, and other roads which were in desperate need of repair.
“This is just a waste of taxpayers’ money, the amount of time spent doing a road that was in no need of any work was ridiculous. Although the job seems to be completed, I have to say that I think, as well as others in the road, that this has not been done very well. Just looking at the road might look fine, but they have not used sufficient tar as stones are still being dislodged when people drive on it and it is very rough, which means that, considering it never needed to done in the first place, it is going to become worse than ever as the years go by,” said McCance-Price.
Following queries to ward councillor, Mmabatho Tembe, feedback was received from Pavement Management Systems at eThekwini Municipality.
In the response, the department representative said as the condition of a road deteriorated over time, preventive maintenance and rehabilitation was required to extend its service life. The representative said the cost of bringing them back up to a standard acceptable for use rose exponentially, for example, when a road deteriorated from a fair condition to a very poor condition, the cost increased approximately 18 times over. He said this was why the municipality undertook work on a road that looked good simply because it was close to the point of becoming poor or very poor and it would have been uneconomical to let it deteriorate further.
“For a preventive maintenance and rehabilitation programme to be cost effective, it is necessary to apply the right treatment to the right road at the right time. Some of the measures undertaken to achieve this are seal and rehabilitation projects which respectively involve applying a thin layer of bitumen and stone chips, and replacing the existing asphalt surface after strengthening the underlying pavement structure. New Haven Road was identified as a suitable candidate for the application of a seal. Technical and financial feasibility will determine which alternative maintenance and rehabilitation measures will be applied to other roads in the city,” he said.
McCance-Price however disagreed, saying this was definitely not the case with New Haven Road as there was not a pothole in sight and the road was not well used except by the people who live along the road.
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