Hard to argue that Ballito is ‘unserviced’

I am a commercial property owner within the Urban Improvement Precinct selected area for Ballito and recently saw a short presentation on the  UIP.
It was, in short, very impressive and will have an enormous impact on our town. What it will essentially do at worst is make sure that our town stays as it is but in a secure, well maintained and ‘not scruffy’ environment, and it won’t degenerate into the towns we see all over South Africa. But at best it will be able to enhance the existing facilities and continually ‘better’ the environment of the town so that it will stand out as a really special well maintained and first world town.
What they do on a day-to-day basis is continually monitor the council employees who are around but who are never overseen and therefore never go the full distance. This is cleaners, garden maintenance, beach cleaners, general maintenance etc. – so they will be ensuring that our rates are being properly utilized – that is amazing for a start. They will also be liasing direct with business owners and pressurizing them to take on individual upgrades and behave responsibly.
They will, for example, be able to take up issues like our neighbour who has no enclosed cleaning yard right at our main entrance, etc.
How they describe their function is to partner with the council – therefore it is imperative for them to stay in a good healthy working relationship with the council officials and workers (this has been very successfully achieved where it has been done in other places) – something none of us can really do properly when you are trying to work at the same time.
I think it is really a total necessity in our current situation here in South Africa. The counter argument is of course that we pay our rates so we should expect good service . . . but the reality is that our town has to drop below the level of others in our KwaDukuza area before we can properly argue that we are not getting our share of service. That is a scary thought – that’s why I think this is a fantastic and easily workable undertaking. I think we should support it entirely.

ANGELA PLEKKER
Ballito