Church tent fuels community tension

TENSION has been building between New Germany residents and the Grace Baptist Church on Bershire Drive over the past five years.

Residents claim the church, which hosts its sermons in a tent, has been playing loud music past the stipulated times and often until unreasonable hours.

Tony da Canha, the deputy chairman of the New Germany CPF reported that the church has often played the loud music until 10pm.

Residents have lodged complaints at the Durban Metro Station and the Pinetown Police.

The New Germany CPF have also received complaints against the church, and have had meetings with the church’s Pastor Vuli Dludla, explaining the residents’ frustration.

“They have been to our meetings. We explained to them that we don’t have anything against the church and that we just want them to reduce the noise,” said da Canha.

According to da Canha the church has applied for permission to construct a building on the site, but Town Planning, a department within eThekweni Municipality, has denied the application on the basis that the site is too small for worshipping purposes,

Councillor Jean Lindsay has confirmed Tony’s statement.

“They did go through all the legal channels and are now appealing Town Planning’s decision,” said Lindsay.

“They are being very unreasonable and uncaring,” she added.

Steve van Tonder and Chris Brown, are two local residents who have confronted the church in their frustration.

“Once they started at 4am with their music and woke us up. I tried to quiet them down, but they said that they could do what they wanted,” said van Tonder.

“They have not made an effort to compromise at all why do there have to be threats, confrontation and accusations? There is no reason,” added Brown.

Brown and da Canha fear that there will be a serious confrontation between a resident and the church.

“Somebody is going to flip and somebody is going to get hurt,” said Brown.

Despite several attempts, the Highway Mail was unable to contact Pastor Dludla.