A call to unite for restoration

PINETOWN Incorporated (PINC), an NPC that has been started to unite, advance and promote local businesses in the Pinetown area, is calling for businesses and the community to support its cause of restoring the area.

PINC’s Xolani Mwandla said businesses are leaving Pinetown because of the state is it in, with crime being one of the biggest challenges.

“One of our aims is getting businesses involved in support of keeping the Pinetown community safe and free from crime.

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“We want Pinetown to be a vibrant, prosperous community with desirable economic opportunities – and where there will be no crime.”

Mwandla said people have too much time on their hands and have no place where they can socialise and take part in some activities. He pointed out Lahee Park as one of the places that people can utilise.

“The sad part is that it has been vandalised and the clubhouses stripped. There are many illegal activities taking place there.”

He said he has strong faith that the rejuvenation and revamping of Lahee Park, plus adding new sporting codes, could make a huge difference in the Pinetown area as a whole.

Among the NPC’s missions is improving street patrol systems or the use of an artificial-intelligence generation of cameras.

“We hope to acquire and reconstruct old abandoned-building properties. We also want to have something vibrant, such as the registration and creation of a new radio/podcast platform for news and business advertising.

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“We appeal to the public and business owners to join hands with us. At the moment, we have a few businesses on board who are willing to support this initiative, but to make this a success, we need more businesses, both small and big, and the residents to get on board.”

For more information, visit www.pinc.org.za or email info@pinc.org.za. Contact 067 888 5145 or 068 503 7221. The offices are situated at 4 Ivy Road, Pinetown.

The state of Lahee Park

In 2017, the eThekwini Municipality sent a statement about the Lahee Park re-development proposals getting the green light, but after seven years, nothing has been done.

The City manager at that time said the re-developments included upgrading the existing facilities as well as the establishment of new facilities and infrastructure to re-establish Lahee Park as the premier sporting precinct.

Allan Chadwick, manager of the Pinetown Gymnastics Club, which is the only club left in the sporting precinct, said the park is ‘done for’.

“We are the last functioning club, and if we didn’t have such a spectacular facility, we would have left long ago. The bowls club closed last year, after 65 years, and within five weeks, all the buildings had been totally vandalised,” said a frustrated Chadwick.

According to Chadwick, the cricket club would have celebrated its 150th anniversary. “Instead, it was celebrated by the homeless men setting fire to the building, and it has partially collapsed,” he said.

He mentioned that the tennis clubhouse is being guarded, but all 11 courts are ‘history’.

“The grass has come up through the playing surface, the old rugby clubhouse is also being guarded and those two fields are being used by an over-35 football league. The old hockey and athletics clubhouses have been abandoned and vandalised completely – the squash courts were bricked up, but I believe in the last two weeks, someone has broken in and started carting stuff away.”

Chadwick said he believes that for a stadium or park to function properly, it needs to be a buy-in of the general public where it is ‘their’ facility and that it should be cared for by all so we can all enjoy it.

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“There are many other parks that are functioning well,” he added.

In his view, Chadwick said if the park could be secured, there may be hope that most facilities could be resuscitated, adding that he would imagine it repurposed where rugby would become football, tennis would become basketball or netball or maybe something big like pickleball or padel – maybe even indoor football or outdoor futsal.

“The park also has a BMX track.”

Emails were sent to the eThekwini Municipality to get answers as to what was the cause for the delays, and what the plans for the park are, but no response was received by the time of publishing.

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