Airfield residents express their concerns

After reading your article in the Benoni City Times on Friday, March 6, it is felt that a few concerns should be expressed from the residents of Airfield and on behalf of the Airfield Action Group.

Airfield was established some 70 years ago and the houses in the area are all of that age, comfortable, with big rooms and outbuildings that have been built on as properties were improved over the years.

Some residents still live in the houses they bought all those years ago.

After seeing what the developer intends building, these modern style townhouses, although very nice, will certainly not match our quaint suburb and will be quite out of place with older-style houses and gardens.

The Phil Erasmus Park is not a piece of waste ground looking for a development, it has always been designated a park.

The council maintains the grass, not always well, but they do send in the grass cutters from time to time. It is normally neat.

We are all ratepayers in the area and have been informed that part of this park was sold in 2008.

If that is so, have the rates and taxes been paid on that piece of land by the person(s) who bought the land nine years ago?

It also begs the questions: if the land was sold all that time ago, why was it not demarcated as a stand and why does the council still cut the grass and maintain the land?

Nobody from the council maintains our gardens or cuts our or grass for us, not even the grass verges of the suburb. It is the residents’ responsibility.

When someone wants to improve their home by erecting an extension or alterations, permission is required from our immediate neighbours that they are in agreement with our intentions.

This is then sent to the council for approval before the foundation is dug or the first brick is laid.

However, none of the immediate residents near the park have ever been approached by any developer to see if they are in agreement with this development.

The correct procedures have definitely not been followed.

When this old suburb of ours was built all those years ago, people did not have the modern electrical appliances they do today.

Our house even had the place for the old Aga coal stove when we altered the kitchen. Sometimes the power goes down to a point where you can see the element trying to glow inside the globe.

We have measured our electricity supply and it goes down to a low level. The water pressure sometimes does not support the garden hose and, when we have load-shedding, the water supply is non-existent because the pump in Aerodrome Drive is powered by electricity.

The developer intends to build 14 townhouses.

This is two bathrooms per townhouse and one for the domestic’s room (an additional 42 bathrooms), +/-28 televisions, 14 microwaves, stoves, fridges and deepfreezes, automatic washing machines, tumble dryers etc., etc.

None of this existed when the suburb was planned and built, all putting additional strain on the already struggling utility supplies.

Fury Avenue, although marked on all the maps, has never been developed.

Fourteen townhouses puts another 28 cars leaving home.

We already experience difficulty through the roundabout in the mornings, with the vehicles coming through after dropping children off at Tom Newby School and the pre-school, not to mention cars reversing and pulling into the crèche built at the edge of the park.

One cannot always use Meteor Street, because of this, and we have to go round the other side of the park into Stirling Street.

Sometimes there is such a queue of cars to get into Ensign Avenue and onto Great North Road that we have to turn left into Ensign and go down Wellington to try to avoid the traffic going to and coming from Laerskool Northmead and Tom Newby School.

An additional 28 cars are not going to enhance this at all.

Meteor and Stirling streets are already in a state of disrepair.

There are 120 trees in the park. In the rainy season they suck up all the additional ground water that would normally run down into the houses on the opposite side of Ensign Avenue and flood them, which has already happened in a particularly heavy season.

One cannot just take out all the trees and cover all the ground in concrete, where is the natural water flow going to go?

We understand why our suburb is sought after, with all the available amenities, that is why we live here.

However, it is clear that the infrastructure of Airfield as it stands cannot support this park development.

Let’s also touch on the people of Airfield.

Our children and grandchildren, as have many others, learned to ride their bikes in this park. We walk our dogs and meet others doing the same in the park.

As mentioned, there is a roundabout at the top that used to have a large tree in the centre. This died and the council removed it and left the grass to grow.

If you drives this way you will see that it now has little flower beds around it and the grass is neatly cut. This is done by the person who lives on the corner; his gardener cuts the grass and weeds the beds.

Sometimes, others put something in the ground and take water to keep it alive.

Many of the children from Tom Newby use the Nelson Mandela 46664 hour of community service to come with a black bag and pick up any rubbish left in the park, as do the residents on a regular basis.

A family who live on the Stirling side of the area cut a patch of grass and erect a volley ball net for the kids to play and make use of.

The caretaker of the crèche is often in the park in the evening, sometimes he has a bit of a braai and we tell him how nice the food looks!

Among the 120 trees, there is nothing special growing, but to walk among them on a sunny day adds magic to our lives.

There are no special species that live there, just the spotted dik-dik and crowned plovers that lay their eggs in the grass, the hadeda ibises calling to one another, the weaver birds and the little brown jobs that enrich our lives, and all special in their own way, as is our park.

Please leave our green lung as it is!