Mbombela’s Stonehenge residents issue petition to stop student accommodation
The residents need 500 signatures to stop student accommodation in their area as the situation is becoming uncontrollable.
Residents of Stonehenge have started a petition to get rid of illegal student housing that is becoming more common in the area.
The petition’s coordinator, Irma Terblanche, said it is to object to the great number of student houses and flats that bring with them noise, loitering, littering, traffic, crime and great pressure on the Stonehenge neighbourhood, which was not designed to accommodate this vast a number of residents.
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“As a community, we have decided to come together to get rid of the student accommodation on the rise in the area, because if we do not act against it, our community will not be controllable. We have engaged our ward councillor, and we also requested the municipality to intervene by making sure they assist us in removing them,” she said.
Terblanche said they are not against students staying in the area, but they are worried about the increasing number of houses that accommodates them.
“We are now urging all Stonehenge residents to sign the petition, which is available on change.org; we need 500 signatures, and 253 have already signed,” she said.
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The ward councillor, Thea Rix, supports the petition because she feels residents are concerned about almost every street in the area having unregistered student accommodation.
“The streets are now full of empty bottles and used condoms; they play loud music, and the fact is that the situation is not controllable. We do not have a problem with students living in the area, but they must stay in a place that is registered,” Rix said.
She added that they did not yet engage with all the owners of the properties occupied by the students. The owners do not occupy the premises themselves and it is not always easy to reach them.
The spokesperson for the City of Mbombela, Joseph Ngala, said it is not aware of the petition, but would comment once it was officially informed.
