Pretoria Road roadworks bad for business

An employee on the site said: “We are on the practical completion stage busy with the final touch-ups. The layering of the tar should be done by the end of next week.”

January 31, 2019

Terry-Ann Diergaardt 2 minutes read

Roadworks on Pretoria Road are expected to be completed by the end of February, but the six-month project, which took almost a year, has caused turmoil for business owners in the area.

The delay for the project, which started in February 2017, is apparently due to a misunderstanding between the contractor and the sub-contractor which resulted in the contractors not working.

This was resolved and roadworks commenced again on November 15.

In the interim, businesses were negatively affected by the delays which proved to have potential long-term effects.

“The main entrance was closed for a while, which discouraged motorists from coming here,” said the manager of a filling station alongside the road, who wished to remain anonymous.

“Our profits have dropped so much that we had to reduce staff hours in order to stay afloat.

“We would fill 8 000 litres of fuel a week and since the roadworks, it has reduced to 3 000 litres a week.”

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Sharon Bothma, who is the manager at the Fish and Chips shop said: “Business has gone down; we have lost an estimate of 40-50 per cent in profit from the time the roadworks started.

“Staff hours had to be cut. A lot of our customers are from the old age home across the road and they do not come as often as they used to.

“Hopefully the road will be finished before the end of February and business will pick up.”

A convenience store that has been trading for over 30 years had their parking area removed during the roadworks, making it an inconvenience to shop at the store.

The manager of the store said they had to reduce bread and milk orders because of the lack of customers walking in.

He also mentioned the sand left on the side of the road would blow into his store; so they found themselves cleaning the shop twice a day.

“We welcomed the roadworks when they gave us the letters saying it would only take five to six months but it has been longer than six months and the road is not done yet,” he said.