Da Gama park to get a revamp

One of the residents who lives close to the park, Mrs Colleen Majmin, complained about City Parks not fulfilling its mandate of keeping the park clean, saying she has made numerous calls to the call centre with no result.

According to Ms Noeleen Mattera, from the public relations and media relations department for Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo, the maintenance for Da Gama Park was scheduled for Thursday, January 29.

“Johannesburg City Parks is methodically working towards resolving the peak summer maintenance backlogs. The summer rains significantly impacted on the entity’s ability to deliver services at an optimum level. This is largely due to the warm and wet weather which accelerates the growth of long grass, shrubs and trees,” she said.

The rapid growth and rain impedes work schedules as employees are not authorised to operate machinery in the rain.

This, in turn, hinders contractors as it is not cost effective to commission work in the intermittent rain.

“This results in operator downtime as the overgrowth places extra pressures on machinery and increases the time it takes to maintain open spaces with long overgrowth. It also generates an increase in the number of residents requesting street tree pruning,” said Ms Mattera.

The influx of park users increases during summer months and, according to Ms Mattera, this results in added strain on playground infrastructure. There is also an increase in bylaw transgressions such as littering and illegal parking.

Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo appealed to residents to maintain the sidewalks adjacent to their homes, which will go a long way towards alleviating some of the pressures of timeous delivery, and will allow the entity to focus on parks, cemeteries and street trees that require more specialised maintenance services.

Ms Mattera commended those residents who do maintain and beautify their verges.

“We are appealing to residents to be patient as maintenance schedules are rolled out,” she added.