Ward 96 councillor Rufus Maswazi says he hopes the provincial government will intervene in what he describes as an urgent need for community facilities in Riverside View.
This was after local netball clubs raised their concerns with Fourways Review during a netball mini-tournament on September 3.
Maswazi says the population in the area is growing fast because of the newly built RDP flats in which people from Diepsloot and Ivory Park have been allocated.
He says Riverside View urgently needs a temporary public school and sports facilities to cater for thousands of children that recently moved to new RDP houses with their families.
“Riverside View is growing fast and it’s already qualified to have its own primary and high school even if it can be in a form of temporary containers. A community of 11 000 residents cannot survive without a public school. Human Settlement Department is continuing to relocate people from as far as Ivory Park and Rabie Ridge. We have only one private school which only caters for the middle class.”
Maswazi says he has engaged the MEC of Education, Panyaza Lesufi who promised to look into the matter. “I have communicated my concern about the growing population and lack of schools in the area with the MEC of Education, Panyaza Lesufi. I will also engage the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture to help us address the issue of sports facilities. Our community also needs facilities like clinic, mobile police station and community centre,” Maswazi said.
Riverside View Residents Association chairperson William Aphane said his organisation raised the school matter with the local councillor and the Department of Education. “We’ve had a number of community meetings with the current and previous councillors about the issue of having a public school built here in Riverside. Our children are suffering because of unreliable transport provided to take them to school. We hope that our government will build us a school to help our children who attend school as far as Tembisa.”
The Fourways Review reached out to the MEC’s spokesperson Steve Mabona for comment on the matter but did not receive anything at the time of publication.
This is what residents of Riverside View had to say about the lack of public facilities in the area:
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