Ballito roadworks on track

Engineers say four lanes of Ballito drive will be open to traffic by the builders break on December 12.

A progress inspection was carried out on the construction of Ballito Drive on Thursday November 20.

A commitment was made at the last meeting about the traffic situation in the Ballito CBD held on Thursday October 30 at La Montagne to have four lanes open (two in each direction) by December 12.

Role players agreed that the construction programme would be accelerated by introducing night work, traffic flow would be improved by providing pointsmen and traffic will be monitored regularly to send pointsmen when traffic flow gets too heavy.

KwaDukuza municipality (KDM) infrastructure and technical portfolio chairperson Sandeep Oudhram said these interim management goals have been achieved.

The inspection was attended by Mayor Ricardo Mthembu, a number of ward councillors, project engineers, contractors, businessmen and the media.

SMEC contract administrator, Rob Archibal, who is in charge of the day to day operations of the road works said they have been working 24 hours a day, seven days a week since the meeting on October 30.

He said work has been interrupted by rain causing them to be approximately a day behind schedule but contingency plans are in place to catch up.

“Working at night is sometimes challenging because certain things can only be done in the light. We are aligning the permanent concrete barriers from 5 am to 6 am because that is the only time when it is light and quiet enough to have only a single lane open to traffic,” said Archibal.-

Out on site Archibal explained that storm water pipes have been laid and they are now busy with a critical phase of construction where the team is having a hard time getting moisture sensitive material to dry out enough so that the next layer can be placed on top of it.

He said they would remove the problem layer and replace it with a different material that is less sensitive to water.

“The question is how fast can we get river sand delivered. There is a limited amount of river sand available and our crusher also had a breakdown,” he said.

He said the “canyon” is not as bad as it looks and work from here on should progress quickly if they can avoid a delay in delivery of materials.

Afriscan is in the process of trying to stockpile building materials to avoid such delays.

Archibal said they will tidy up the construction site and have sidewalks open to pedestrians by December 12 to make Balltio Drive more attractive during the festive season.