‘Out with the vagrants!’ Fairland residents have had enough.
Their beautiful suburb, they say, is being tainted due to vagrants living in Fairland Park.
“The situation in the park has become unbearable,” local resident Kobus Smith said on 24 September.
“Squatters are sleeping in the park at night and making fires; they leave their belongings under trees and under a transformer in neighbouring 5th Avenue. Rubble is strewn all over, crime is increasing and it’s a mess.”
Smith said that the vagrants reportedly sabotaged the adjacent complex‘s fire equipment to access water and used the wooden poles serving to prevent vehicle access to the park as firewood.
“I live in Northcliff, but my daughter lives in Fairland and I cannot let her live close to this mess,” Smith explained.
“Fairland is a pristine, beautiful upmarket area and it’s being polluted by this eyesore. It’s dangerous, it’s unsightly and it’s becoming a nest for drug-dealing.”
In the daytime, the park is mostly clear of people, but at night it is full of vagrants and litter.
The situation was addressed at the Fairland Community Policing Forum meeting at the Fairland Police Station on 9 September.
Fairland Police spokesperson Sergeant Daniel Mametja said that vagrants were attracted to the area because of the generosity of its residents. The community, he said, should not offer assistance with clothing, blankets, work or food.
Ward councillor and temporary overseer of Fairland Ward in the absence of its councillor, Ingrid Reinten said that complaints had been streaming in about the park, and appealed that the SAPS and JMPD attend to the matter.
Fairland Police confirmed that they had been raiding the park that day, as evidenced by their dirty boots.
A proposal was also forwarded to transform the Fairland Park and re-zone it for a police station.
Smith said he had recently seen the JMPD approaching the park inhabitants, but that the inhabitants had simply moved to the other side of the park after this confrontation.
“We had a meeting with Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo representatives about a year ago to put a fence around the wall, but nothing has happened,” he said.
*Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo were asked for comment and hadn’t responded by the time of going to print.
