Cape Town – The pothole problem in the Goodwood area seems to be worsening, and residents have now decided to take matters into their own hands and fix the problem themselves.
Goodwood Ratepayers’ Association chairperson Faizel Petersen said: “We’ve had members of the community filling up some potholes at their own expense, as they fear damage to their vehicles and potential accidents involving cars trying to avoid potholes.”
Yesterday, Goodwood ward councillor Franchesca Walker provided a detailed plan on how they were going to fix potholes in the area, saying it would take time to implement in all affected streets.
“As we all know the lockdown has delayed many projects, and service delivery was seriously hampered due to our staff only operating at 30% at the depots,” Walker said.
“Our depots are almost back to normal, which will allow us to have more staff hanging in there with us. We need to work together as partners to bring about much-needed change.
“Residents need to understand that we had many challenges and we acknowledge that this is frustrating. However, we still strive to put more focus on service delivery throughout the whole ward.”
But Petersen said residents were disappointed with the plan presented,
“There’s a disappointment that the plan only covers a section between Voortrekker Road up to Milton Road, Jakes Gerwel Drive up to Giel Basson Drive. We’ve submitted numerous C3 (service request) calls from across Goodwood where there’s a need for potholes to be repaired, and this (plan) should cover the entire Goodwood,” Petersen said.
The City’s transport directorate said it was implementing plans to attend to potholes after the hard lockdown and winter rains.
The City said the transport directorate had attended to 17 415 potholes across the city at a cost of over R43 million. During level 5 of the lockdown road maintenance was not considered an essential service in terms of the Disaster Management Act regulations, meaning only emergency works could be undertaken then.
During a recent special transport portfolio committee meeting, the City said recent events had caused a rapid increase in the degradation of the roads, and had led to large backlogs in repairs and maintenance, specifically pothole repairs.
Mayco member for transport Felicity Purchase said: “The transport directorate commenced with the pothole repair programme in Goodwood in the last week of September 2020, to clear the backlog of repairs on potholes which were severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“At the moment, we have 70% of our road depot staff back at work, with the rest returning imminently.
“Clearing of the backlog is being prioritised and being attended to as a matter of urgency, and will improve as more staff return to the depots across the city.”
She said the maintenance work was scheduled to take place until April 2021.
Cape Argus