The traffic issue affecting residents cutting through Weltevreden Park to Fairland (and vice versa) via 9th Avenue is not going away as soon as hoped.
This follows yet another missed deadline by the Rand Water contractor, Maziya General Services, who were supposed to reopen the road on Friday, 15 March. The councillor for the ward, David Brand, had indicated to the community that the road was expected to reopen on that date, but when the Northsider visited the site, the road was still closed.
This road had to be closed off last month due to the cracks in the road surface which threatened its integrity. The rain and underground water were highlighted as the main sources of the problem.
Brand stated the following on his Twitter account: “Rand Water has advised that construction work at 9th Avenue has not been completed – the contractor will be working during the weekend and I will post an update early next week …” He also said that the issues of the rain and the wetland were under control.
Dave Baxter, the Panorama Residents Association chairperson, who was on-site when the Northsider visited, continued to lash out at the people in charge of the site for failing to keep their word. “They haven’t met any deadline, including the extended ones, since they got on site. The only deadline they met was starting the project,” he criticised.
Baxter also indicated that the road closure was not the only problem linked to the pipeline contract. “JG Strydom Road was resurfaced six months ago, but the road is now full of potholes. The paving of the road was left half done and now appears to have to be repaired by the power entity,” he complained.
The Northsider will update readers as soon as it learns about a new date for the opening of the road.
