Residents of Fochville complain that open yards and spaces in the bottom part of the town are a health and safety risk.

People staying in the town have been complaining that many of the open yards in areas such as Munt Street, Potchefstroom Street and Siebert Street have become rubbish dumps.

In Potchefstroom Street residents are fighting a losing battle trying to keep the open yards near the T-junction with Losberg Avenue neat.

“Many people just dump here,” said Moses Mantsiwa, an employee of the owner of one of the complexes in the street.

According to Mantsiwa the dumping has been going on since the house that was on one of the open yards burned down more than 20 years ago. Since then residents have asked the Merafong City Local Municipality to intervene several times to clean up the yards or fine the owners, but nothing has been done.

Residents of the area complain that the huge amounts of rubbish on the open yards, which includes stacks of used baby diapers and rotten food, are a health risk. The open yards in Potchefstroom Street are so overgrown that homeless people and even criminals stay in the bushes.

During the Herald’s visit on May 2, a young woman who is former resident of Greenspark and her husband were staying in a shack among the bushes.

“As far as we could find out, this is public land,” the young woman, who was very friendly, told the Herald.

Residents and members of the Fochville CPF (community policing forum) have, however, said in the past that some of the people staying in the bushes on the various open stands are drug users who steal metal from adjacent properties.

The Herald has previously asked the municipality about the issue several times.

One of the main issues is why, if the overgrown stands belong to private owners, the municipality cannot fine these owners to clean the yards, as they did in the past. Alternatively, the question is why they can’t go through a legal process and sell the stands to owners who are prepared to keep them clean and get the money for cleaning.

The municipality again did not answer questions about the matter by printing time.