New reservoir won’t solve water problem
A planned new water reservoir in Northmead won’t solve the problem of fluctuating tap pressure in Brentwood Park.
Clr André du Plessis (Ward 23) said the reservoir, which he said is planned to be built near the current one, between Hospital Road and Farrar Street, won’t entirely solve the problem of low water pressure in the outlying suburbs.
“Lots of developments have taken place in this area over the past 10 years, without the infrastructure being upgraded,” he said.
“The pipes need to be upgraded to accommodate the increase in pressure (from a new reservoir).
“And building the reservoir will take at least another year, as it is in the planning phase, but we have a crisis now.
“For the past 10 years I have been struggling to get Ekurhuleni to upgrade the pipes in Brentwood Park.
“When developers want to build in an area, they have to pay a bulk fee to the municipality, for the upgrade of the infrastructure, but it seems they (metro) used the money elsewhere.”
Du Plessis said an employee within the Ekurhuleni water department informed him of the planned reservoir.
The metro was approached for comment on the above matters, but none had been received at the time of publishing.
Du Plessis said the situation boils down to two problems:
- Lack of maintenance on the part of the metro
- Lack of communication between the metro’s officials and the ward councillors.
Cherine Partridge, a Brentwood Park resident, is thinking of leaving the country, if the problem with water in her suburb persists.
Roy Hayward, a resident of Village Walk Retirement Estate, in Brentwood Park, said on September 7, the suburb has been dry since Thursday (September 1).
“Usually, we have lower pressure during the day and it picks up at night, between 10.30pm and around 8am,” Hayward said.
“Now (September 7), there is nothing.”
Hayward said the water returned at about 9.30pm on September 7, but was off again by 9am the following morning.
Du Plessis said the water was completely off in parts of Brentwood Park this week, due to repair work being done to a burst pipe in Kirschner Road.
“The pipe burst on Tuesday; work continued on it since then and it was fixed late yesterday,” Du Plessis said on September 8.
“There are several retirement estates in Brentwood Park, which is the worst problem, now old people have to carry buckets of water around.
“It is unacceptable.”
Philip Nel, Village Walk chairperson, said the retirement estate will approach the high court in order to take legal action against the Ekurhuleni metro.
These were some of the comments made on the City Times Facebook page, after the article “Water off along Kirschner Road” was published:
Jessica Dalzell: Four to five days? It has been a week where we have extremely low water pressure if any pressure at all! Basically we have not had water and only now they put tankers in place. Pathetic service as usual! (sic)
Cindy Mienie: We haven’t had ANY water for a week…. would have loved to have low pressure. I agree, totally pathetic and really difficult to live like this! (sic)
Cindy Mienie: Different story from what I was told this morning…. but hopefully we have water soon. (sic)
Jessica Dalzell: We only have a little at night, takes 30 min to put a little in the bath then it goes off again. During the day nothing. Past two days bone dry both day and night. But hey we will carry on paying for the blady water we don’t get and pay our taxes for bugger all to get sorted. (sic)
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