Glen Austin residents want their roads fixed

Glen Austin Residents Association said they felt disappointed that eroding road infrastructure in the area had not been addressed.

The association’s infrastructure and services chairperson, John Mphatsoe told the Midrand Reporter on 27 January that residents were ‘fed up’ with the deteriorating roads in the suburb. “The damaged roads makes it impossible for residents to drive on them,” he claimed.

He said the road infrastructure was built to suit agricultural holdings years ago but it was not suitable for large trucks that use the roads today. “Pitzer Road has a section where the tar has been removed by the [trucks]. Some roads such as Hampton Road and Potgieter Road still remain gravel.

“We need all the roads in Glen Austin to be tarred and heavy duty trucks to be banned from these narrow roads.”

He said the association had been reporting these problems over the past five years, and every year they participated in the Infrastructure Development Plan meetings and made their presentations but claimed nothing gets done.

Mphatsoe added that these roads now posed a danger to the members of the Community Police Forum who patrol at night as there were no streetlights in Glen Austin and the poor road surfaces damaged the tyres of the patrollers’ vehicles.

Kelebogile Mafa, the media liaison for Johannesburg Roads Agency, said this issue had been logged and would soon be given attention. “The regional operations depot has not yet given a date as to when the roads would be fixed. But they did assure that they would do an inspection and make the roads safe,” he added.

Details: Glen Austin Residents Association 011 203 3605.