Ward councillors ready to take on 2015
Ward councillors have plans and goals for their areas this year.
LOCAL ward councillors are raring to put plans into action for their respective wards this year.
Ward 31 councillor, Jethro Lefevre, said his plans for the year included tying up loose ends from last year.
“A lot of contractual work was done in my ward last year, from the electrification of the informal settlement at Lacey Road, the building of a new substation, the completion of a R36-million stormwater upgrade and 10km of new pavement installed around schools in the area. There’s always the aftermath where things are not completed to the residents’ standards. I will need to follow up and tie up loose ends,” he said.
Lefevre said he would also be addressing council’s traffic calming policy.
“Two people died in accidents on Rippon Road recently. The eTA needs to find alternative speed calming methods on high order roads such as the table top bumps, which are slight, flat speed bumps. I will be pushing for intervention on roads such as Rippon and Moses Kotane (Sparks) Road,” said Lefevre.
Ward 27 councillor, Martin Meyer, says his focus is on community this year, following the launch of the community involvement project at Sutton Park at the end of last year.
“I hope to expand this community responsibility initiative to other parks in the area such as Clarence Road, Jameson Park and Mitchell Park, and have meetings and form committees in these areas. For the first quarter of the year my main focus will be to meet with residents in the parks and launch initiatives in this way,” he said.
He said he would also consolidate on work done and build on relationships with residents.
From a council perspective, Meyer said he would be focusing on the functioning of Metro Police.
“We are not seeing effective law enforcement and this will be my focus in council for the first part of the year. I would also like to engage with the mayor to have a Disability Desk established to ensure the city is more disability friendly,” he said.
Ward 33 councillor, Nicole Graham, said there was a lot to focus on regarding service delivery, especially in respect of parks and cleanliness in the area.
“We have seen an improvement in the Glenwood/Umbilo area with tree cutting but we need to deal with the backlo, and hope this continues. I feel we need an area based management structure which deals with getting council departments to do what they are meant to do, to manage urbanisation, cleanliness and so on,” she said.
Graham said this had started with the formation of the Umbilo Service Delivery Forum at the end of 2014, and she hoped things would improve.
“There’s also a lot of creative potential which is unique to Glenwood, and we saw this creative positivity last year and need to build on this,” she said.
Graham said from a council perspective she would be focusing on events and tourism, where she believes there is a lot of potential.
“A lot of work still needs to be done, however. I also want to ensure better enforcement capacity on littering and dumping,” she said.
