The meeting was called by Funani Environmental Management Solutions, the environmental consultants appointed by the church, to discuss a proposal for a new filling station in Wit Road, Lodeyko.
Local businessman Willem Grobler says the poor attendance is due to an insufficient notification period of only one day.
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Funani consultant Manqoba Thwala says once the draft of the basic assessment report (BAR) is completed and site notices have been put up at the premises, they have to wait for the input from the local community and the metro for a period of 30 days.
“The development process including the background information document will be processed during the week. The interested and affected parties will be notified during the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process,” says Manqoba.
Prior to the meeting, Funani submitted a submission for the application of an environmental authorisation form to the Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (GDARD).
“A waiting period of 10 days is maintained for GDARD’s acknowledgement of receipt of the letter before we can continue with other activities,” says Manqoba.
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A traffic count was recently conducted to establish the support the new filling station might get from the motorists using Wit Road.
Willem says the development will kill business for other filling stations in less than a 3km radius.
This statement will be investigated by the environmental consultants.
He says his business is exactly 1.4km from where the new filling station is planned to be.
“This is totally unfair towards the public for only giving them a one day notice period of the scheduled meeting,” says Socrates Argyrou, a Springs businessman.
Mbali Thwala from Funani says they will forward all the concerns to the owner and the traffic engineer.
“Based on the comments we received, we will schedule another meeting soon,” she says.
