Construction holes remain present in Auckland Park

Roads in and around Auckland Park have been left in a sorry state with potholes and holes made during construction left unfilled.

The roads affected are Empire Road, which connects to Barry Herzog Avenue along Kingsway, and Perth with Main Road.

The stretch of these roads constitutes an important part of the Rea Vaya non-motorised transit route and the majority of the City of Johannesburg corridor development projects planned for Region B are taking shape on either side.

Ward 69 councillor Katja Naumann expressed her concern about the worsening state of these roads.

“One of the goals of the corridor development project is to increase its pedestrian traffic in this area. However, travelling down the route – whether by bus, car or on foot – it becomes clear that the pavements along this major artery are in a state of disrepair, with no indication of maintenance or care,” she said.

The pavement on the corner of Empire and Menton roads has become so overgrown that pedestrians need to step into the road to walk past them.

“City Power dug up the intersection at Campus Square five months ago – loose cables lie strewn across and a flattened yield sign faces toward the sky. The holes in the pavement that have not been reinstated after maintenance– as well as the potholes – continue all the way past Helen Josef Hospital and into Westbury,” Naumann added.

She pointed out that all these issues have been reported to the individual entities responsible for their repair.

Naumann said she personally took the head of the JRA in Region B, Andrew Bodibe, around Ward 69 in December to point out all the outstanding service delivery issues that the JRA is responsible for.

Bodibe acknowledged these incidents and said, “We have a serious challenge in the region with the reinstatement of the trenches on the footways and on the road. There are many developments and infrastructure improvements taking place in the region – this has created a large backlog on the reinstatements in the region.”

Furthermore, there is also illegal digging happening across the region. The JRA must also repair those [and] this takes up limited resources. We have now created dedicated teams and we are also getting additional external teams to assist with reinstatements backlog,” he added.