Mysterious trenches have popped up in Parkmore and have been left unattended since the middle of June, with no one claiming responsibility.
An offending trench was dug up in front of a primary school in Parkmore with another trench on Victoria Street. No barricades were put up, with the trenches now posing a safety risk to residents in the area.
Kate Wardle, chairperson of the Parkmore Community Association said, “The PCA was first made aware of the open trench in July this year. There is a similar trench open on Victoria Street near the Parkmore vet.
“It took well over a year for the Johannesburg Roads Agency and Eskom to agree on who had to reinstate [the trench on] Victoria Street. I am hoping it doesn’t take a year for this trench to be filled, considering that there are young children who are potentially at risk every day.”
She said it is unacceptable that it has been left open for months. “Despite contacting the agency and various fibre providers, they were unable to identify who opened up this section.
“I trust that whoever is at fault, that the agency does the right thing and fixes it as soon as possible. This road should be closed immediately to avoid any accidents.”
Jurie Van Dyk, corporate implementation engineer for MTN, said the company is not responsible for the trenches.
“We are taking it very seriously and have done its own investigation about this. We have visited the site on 4 August with representatives from the agency, Dark Fibre Africa, Ericsson and Huawei,” said Van Dyk.
He said another site visit was done on 11 August in order to try and resolve this issue. “It seems that a team of three people were trenching at the school about one week before the schools closed for the school holidays.
“They opened the trenches but did not install any pipes, ducts or cable, and left without closing and reinstating it. To me it seems more like City Power or some contractor was trying to locate a power fault, as the open sections does not make sense that they were laying ducts. In all these open sections, the big power cable is visible.”
Bertha Peters-Scheepers, marketing and communications officer for the roads agency said, “The agency takes complaints received seriously and those relating to the way leaves non-compliance by service providers in Parkmore.”
She said the agency carried out an inspection of the trenches. “We will back fill trenches on both Victoria Avenue and on 12th Street outside Montrose Primary on 18 August. The permanent reinstatement will be complete by next week.
“The open trenches remain unsafe to children at the school. Despite prior site visits with the service providers who applied for way leaves, they have failed to comply with the request to close the trenches.”
She said MTN will be fined for non-compliance and failure to adhere to outcomes from the prior site meeting when they agreed to close the trenches.
“We apologise for the inconvenience caused to the community.”
