A SERIES of burst water pipes on Balmoral Drive this year caused flooding, damage to properties and infrastructure, and left residents without water while repair work was carried out.

Large sections of the road are pockmarked with damage with some of the bursts surrounded by warning tape and sometimes the spoil from the tar the eThekwini Municipality have had to dig up to access a pipe.

While prolonged water outages have occurred across north Durban due to ageing infrastructure, residents suspect the problem on Balmoral Drive could be related to water pressure.

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That, coupled with inadequate infrastructure maintenance, has left residents frustrated and in despair.

Chinelle Gaspar said the road sees at least a burst a week, the latest of which occurred on Sunday, November 1.

“When the water supply challenges began and our reservoirs were empty we began to notice a pattern. Every time the water came back the pipes would burst. In our own property we had six bursts alone. We replaced the pipes and the plumber remarked about them being very old. We even put in extra stop valves to stop pipes from bursting when the water surges.

“Where residents are frustrated is that when they were logging tickets about the water pressure, tickets were closed as resolved without more explanation of what was going on. If the problem along Balmoral is just the pressure then it can be corrected rather than going down the route of the entire pipeline being corrected. We’ve had bursts at least once a week and this amount is not normal,” she said.

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Another resident, Glynis Owen, concurred with Gaspar about the frequency of bursts.

She has also been directly affected as the bursts have flooded and damaged her driveway.

“I’ve had at least three bursts outside my property alone and the water often flows down my driveway. I’ve noticed the paving lifting too. It is extremely frustrating because no sooner is one leak or burst fixed, then another leak appears. I feel the solution is to replace the entire length of pipe because they are so old and the ageing infrastructure is impacting on residents. We’ve also reached out to the ward councillor to report the issues,” Owen said.

At the time of publishing, the eThekwini Municipality had not commented on the matter.

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