EDITOR – I agree with ‘Concerned Ratepayer’ and ‘Disillusioned, Westville‘: we have every reason to start voicing our frustrations and concerns for a once beautifully-kept, leafy suburb.
The condition of the central business area of Westville alone speaks for itself, witnessing a dismal failure of a delinquent contractor who disappeared into the sunset with our hard-earned rates, leaving the ‘revamped pavement project‘ half finished.
There has been little or no action taken by the council, which was, from the start, responsible for appointing the delinquent contractor.
Two years later there is no change to this disastrous mess. The pavements are full of weeds, the paving bricks are slowly but surely disappearing, land subsidence is developing and the taken-down road signs are still not displayed.
Whoever wins this project to ‘clean up and fix up’ will have to start from scratch. We wait in anticipation for the municipality’s promises to repair to come to fruition.
To see school children and pedestrians in general not being able to use the pavements, but rather having to walk in the street, is nothing less than irresponsible on the behalf of the eThekwini Council.
The number of weeds that are growing out of pavements and the storm water drains is now a common sight in Westville.
Gone are the days of pre-planned maintenance and spraying for weeds; now they grow wild, block the storm water drains and, when the periodic verge cutters come along, they trim the weeds that are growing out of the drains instead of removing them.
After sending an e-mail to the prescribed department informing them of the problem it never gets answered or even responded to. Try and telephone – well, you can forget it, no answer.
Street light maintenance is non-existent, lights in Burlington and Marford Roads have been out for months.
One particular light pole and its light cover is now totally grown over by an alien tree, and being on a sharp, dark corner with no light displayed at night is a high risk to motorists. Send an e-mail to the prescribed department – no answer, no response, and you can forget about phoning.
It is my opinion that, while the honest and righteous ratepayer continues to diligently pay their monthly rates, there is absolutely no pressure on the eThekwini Council to respond to or do anything to rectify the poor service delivery as the cash just keeps coming in from the diligent, law-abiding ratepayers.
We see in the media that certain communities resort to burning and trashing municipal properties and facilities if they do not get acceptable service delivery; Heaven forbid that this ever happens in Westville.
The reality is that these communities that resort to these destructive measures may well only have these frustrated means of leveraging a response or action from the council.
I ask a humble question, with caution, what would happen if the whole of the Westville community held back their monthly rates in protest against poor service delivery?
This, in my opinion, would be strong and sure leverage by an organised forum to encourage the council to meet with the Westville ratepayers, and through a continuous open forum agree and commit the council to specific tasks and actions to be completed and finished by agreed-upon dates.
The reality is that, while we keep paying our monthly rates and our ward councillors are possibly fobbed off, it will remain the status quo and Westville will sadly and regrettably quietly slide away.
Rusky
Westville
