A PARK Hill resident has expressed his frustration over a water leak that took more than three weeks to fix, wasting thousands of litres of water.

Brad Potgieter, who lives on Grove Crescent, had to try and divert water from pooling in his driveway and on the road in the interim.

He also highlighted that despite warnings to conserve water by the eThekwini Municipality the repair took too long to fix.

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“It shouldn’t require this much time to fix a water leak. While I am glad the municipality have stopped the leak, this has wasted thousands of litres of water, when there is such a great need for water. Water is a precious commodity and seeing it running like it’s worth nothing was awful.

“To stop the water from flowing down an embankment and flooding my driveway I had to engineer a rough solution using a traffic cone to stop the water from flowing into my property and into a stormwater culvert. Thankfully the residents didn’t have to pay for the loss because it was from a supply pipe,” he said.

Potgieter also proposed something to mitigate non-revenue water loss, which now stands at over 50%.

“Why not incentivise every household with a storage tank with two days’ supply, whether the City passes legislation or subsidises or however they do it. That way they are able to shut down the water supply in the affected area while they fix the leak or problem,” he said.

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Ward councillor Heinz de Boer, who concurred with Potgieter over water loss, said the issue of bursts and leaks were a crisis across the ward.

“What we are experiencing in Ward 36 and north Durban is an absolute crisis when it comes to water. We are losing hundreds of thousands of litres because leaks are unattended. I know of three leaks in Lancaster Grove where I’ve personally taken photos and reported it and are yet to be fixed. The turnaround time to fix leaks and bursts is horrendous and it is one of the biggest headaches for frustrated residents,” he said.

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