The award-winning Westdene Dam Park has fallen from grace since it’s reopening in December last year.
The park won the Sali Gold Award for Specialised Landscape Design as well as the Sali Silver Award for Environmental and Water Wise Landscaping last year.
When the Northcliff Melville Times visited the park after seeing a Facebook complaint from a concerned Westdene resident, the park’s vegetation was overgrown.
At the entrance of the park, weeds were growing through paving stones as well as at the bases of the newly planted trees.
A patch of ground in the children’s play has also long seen a lawnmower blade and has tall weeds growing on the patch of grass.
On the way to the south side of the park near the first outdoor gym, a patch of weeds has appeared next to the walkway where grass stopped growing.
“It’s a pity; this would be a lovely space for a vegetable patch but the ducks would eat them all,” said Westdene/Sophiatown Residents’ Association chairperson, Dauw Steyn during the visit.
Further into the park, near the Ash Road entrance around the park’s second outdoor gym, newly planted trees and their support poles were blown over in one of Johannesburg’s recent big storms.
The path between the park’s outdoor sports area and the University of Johannesburg rugby fields was slowly but surely being covered in weeds on either side of the path.
In addition to the weeds and the blown-over trees, the park’s grass has grown rampant and some sections of the grass especially around the children’s play area and close to the water on the South side of the park seemed to have been cut but only up to certain points as though only to ‘tidy up’ the grass instead of getting rid of it all.
Steyn said the grass needs to be cut soon in order to avoid it growing so tall that criminals can lie in wait especially where children regularly play.
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