Town’s urbanisation program a flop

THE ABAQULUSI Municipality has failed to complete the Vryheid Town Urban Design Framework Program on time.
The initial project included the upgrading of Mason Park, the upgrading of Mason Street’s informal trading space and facilities, the reconstruction of Domoina Lane and the construction of the High Street Bridge.
All these projects, which were started in October 2013, with the aim to be completed in July 2014, seem to have failed dismally.
The main idea behind the initiative was to develop Vryheid’s economy but this seems to have not worked as instead of creating jobs, people are losing them.
A certain community member who owns a section of the buildings in Mason Street, just as one heads to the taxi rank, reported to the AbaQulusi Residents Association that the construction of the small trading shelters in front of their shops has already caused three shops to be closed costing 13 people their jobs.
According to this resident, the shelters have been built as close as 1.6 metres from their building line.
The informal traders also seem to not be phased by the municipality’s attempts to improve their trading spaces as they feel that using these shelters will prevent potential customers seeing their goods.
“This is how we have always sold our goods and now they want to pack us away in these small rooms where no one will be able to see us,” complained one of the traders.
According to the informal traders, they were not asked about how they felt about this change in their trading areas, they were merely told how the project would go and not asked for any input.
Mason Park is currently at a halt with the random municipal workers that tend to cutting the grass after every few weeks, besides this, no other work seems to be done to the park which was supposed to come complete with braaing facilities and an amphitheatre finish.
Work on the High Street Bridge, which seemed to be moving at a reasonable pace last year, has also stopped and there are rumours (although these have not yet been confirmed) that there were issues with the contractors.