‘A true tragedy’ – Brakpan Bowls Club destroyed beyond recognition [PICS]

Brakpan Bowls Club is destroyed beyond recognition. After being abandoned for five years, a fire razed it to the ground two months ago. Now, drug addicts, dealers and sex workers call this piece of collapsed infrastructure home.

The property is one of several monuments to neglect on the East Rand, along with the PAM Brink Stadium, which once hosted international rugby matches, the old St Martin’s Primary School in Boksburg and countless others.

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Bowling clubs are a South African way of life, not just for the players, but for neighbourhoods where they have become community centres; places to unwind, have a small meal and a cold brew with friends and family. Not any more.

Brakpan Bowling Club is next to a rapidly decaying city centre. Between what’s left of its structure, disused toilet seats occupy cubicles with a view, disused needles and old bottlenecks used as pipes to smoke mandrax and dagga, add some colour to the soot-covered bricks strewn about.

Brakpan Bowling Club tour

Two addicts, who just shot up some tik when The Citizen visited the club, provided a grand tour of the heap of bricks and mortar. In a small basement room, they had a fire going, fuelled by plastic and wood scraps.

This is where they hide. An adjacent room’s use, with human excrement on one end and disused condoms on the other, is self-explanatory.

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“This used to be the bar,” said the 25-year-old man. It’s where he played as a youngster, because ironically, his dad was club chair at one stage.

“It’s sad what has become of this place. Some people live here now, others come for a good time.”

A dribbler, or someone who collects recyclables to sell, was picking up treasure to sell. In what used to be the parking lot, dug-up non-copper cables lie snaked and rusting. Local ward councillor Brandon Pretorius is at the end of his tether. He has spent years trying to get the Ekurhuleni municipality to do something about the mess.

“A true tragedy,” said Pretorius.

“That is how I would describe the current state of the old Brakpan Bowling Club. Since the club’s closure, there have been numerous times where the municipality was approached to use the space by different stakeholders. The saddest is that the initiatives that were proposed would have all assisted with the uplifting of the community.

“Some proposals were to turn the unused building into a shelter or community upliftment centre, without any capital assistance expected from the municipality.”

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But, Pretorius said, the proposals fell on deaf ears. There are several other overgrown and abandoned buildings, according to security expert Marius van der Merwe.

The Savoy Hotel is a skeleton, with empty high street stores and centres. Crumbling infrastructure inevitably attracts crime, said Van der Merwe.

“The socioeconomic consequences of neglect are far-reaching and urban ruin gathers momentum very quickly.”

St Martin’s Primary School is also abandoned, burnt down and now home to criminals, drug peddlers, addicts and, allegedly, gun dealers.

Residents of surrounding areas have resorted to creating an “Abandoned Buildings” WhatsApp group watch to liaise with private security and neighbours, as government inaction continues to deepen the problem.

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“The municipality has a number of vulnerable buildings,” Pretorius said.

“The city needs to make them available for use through public private partnerships. This would prevent something like this happening again and again.”

The City of Ekurhuleni did not comment.

– news@citizen.co.za