Keith Horwood, a local roads and earthworks contractor, is convinced that urgent action needs to be taken.
He said, “I am very concerned about the stability of the backfill underneath the road. For me, it is like driving right at the edge of an unstable cliff.”
Horwood is not the only one concerned about the state of the bridge.
Another resident, Kitty Pretorius, noticed that it has been months since the collapse and the bridge has still not been fixed. She said, “The bridge should have been fixed during the Winter because now that it’s (the) rainy season the road is collapsing even more.”
Pretorius believes that the yellow chevron plates and plastic barriers that are used to divert cars is tantamount to putting a plaster over a massive wound.
Andre Kilian of the Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport has been communicating with Horwood about the status of the repairs.
He stated that the designs and draft tender documentation for the repairs to the bridge on Witkoppen Road had been received by the department and that the repairs would go to tender stage soon.
Kilian added that he would also send a maintenance team out to check if there was any danger of further collapse.
While this is no comfort to Horwood, who believes that the repairs should be done with absolute urgency, Kilian explained that the correct procedure had to be followed with regards to the repairs so as to prevent future collapses.
