RESIDENTS are forced to “slip and slide” to work every day when they drive along Shannon Road in Pomona.
The metro apparently has no money to tar this road, which is in a very bad state of disrepair.
The reason for the surface of the road becoming so slippery is because of the soft clay-like material used when grading the road.
Mrs Kotze, who lives on Shannon Road, says it becomes a problem during the rainy season. “The cars literally slide from side to side on Shannon Road after it’s been raining,” Kotze said.
“We are forced to use this road every day as there is no other entrance or exit out of our area.”
She said the contractors hired to tar 2nd Avenue in Pomona told her the metro said there was no money to fix the roads.
Since about January 20, emails between roads department officials and DA ward councillor Pieter Henning show each time the road was supposed to be fixed, it had been postponed due to a lack of material.
According to an email sent to Henning by a department official, the appointment of a material supplier for Shannon Road would have been finalised by February 6 and an order for tipper trucks was still waiting for approval. But by February 15, nothing had been done.
“The adjudication and appointment of the material supplier should be finalised before February 6 and we are also waiting for the approval of the official order for the tipper trucks to be used to haul additional crusher run from Edenvale,” the email read.
But the road still hadn’t been repaired by Monday.
“Instead, they came in last week and dropped off five lorry loads of crusher run on the one side of the road, leaving even less room for cars to drive,” Kotze said.
According to Allan Sauls, DA PR councillor, the roads department had failed to do its job.
“The poor condition of Shannon Road, as well as many other roads in Pomona, seems to continue as the roads department fails to address the current poor conditions of the streets. Assurances were given by the municipality that the poor material causing the poor road conditions on Shannon Road would be removed and replaced with G5 materials, which is of a much higher quality and able to correct the current muddy road condition after rains.
“The municipality has promised since the end of 2014 that these repairs would be done,” Sauls commented.
Jurie Swart, also a resident, said the road was bad even when it was not raining.
“What happens is when it’s been raining, the soft clay becomes muddy and gets shaped into deep trench-like spaces on the road. When the road dries out, it hardens and has deep holes everywhere,” Swart said.
Residents have also had a lot of damage caused to their vehicles. One resident, who owns a business in the area, has spent thousands of rands on broken rims and had to replace two car tyres due to the rough and extremely uneven road surface she has to drive on every day.
“Some of our clients have even started becoming discouraged to come to us because of the condition of the road. We had an incident last year where one of our clients’ vehicles got stuck in mud. The bumper of his car broke off as he was trying to get the car out of the mud.”
Kotze had to take her car to a mechanic to get her engine and gear mountings fixed and plans lodging a claim against the municipality for the damage.
