North crusher plant upgraded to accelerate pothole repairs, improve road maintenance
“With the successful completion of the Crusher Plant refurbishment project, the metro will no longer have to procure road building and maintenance materials from external service providers.”
A newly upgraded crusher plant in the north of Pretoria owned by the metro will help speed up pothole repairs and improve road maintenance in Tshwane.
The plant, located at the Bon Accord quarry, was launched by finance MMC Peter Sutton and utilities MMC Daryl Johnston on Tuesday.
“The quarry was established in 1904 to help the municipality produce and provide its own materials or building and maintaining roads,” said Tshwane metro spokesperson Sipho Stuurman.
It consists of two plants, namely the crusher plant and the asphalt plant.
The site is an open cast mine with a valid mining licence issued by the mineral resources department.
“The plant experienced constant breakdowns due to ageing infrastructure. It posed as a health and safety risk, as it also failed to comply with mine health and safety act regulations.”
He said all of this necessitated the upgrades so that the plant can operate optimally.
“It was through the efforts of our previous administration that we were able to push for the successful completion of the refurbishments.”
The refurbished plant will significantly increase available materials to produce asphalt to ensure adequate maintenance of roads and pothole repairs across the city.
As part of the refurbishment project, the metro invested R46-million to upgrade the crusher plant to operate optimally, Stuurman said.
“This funded a multitude of upgrades including excavation and earthworks; the installation of new conveyors and belts; jaw crushers and two cone crushers; new electrical cabling; safety features, gearboxes, motors and various other core components.”
Stuurman said the upgraded plant will produce 270 tons per hour of crusher sand; 7-, 10-, 14- and 19mm stone; and crusher run (G1).
“The current asphalt plant within the quarry is also earmarked for upgrades to increase its capacity to enable accelerated road maintenance. Currently, the plant supplies all Tshwane regions between 120 to 160 tonnes of hot-mix asphalt per day.
“The work we have done to upgrade and improve these plants’ capacity reaffirms our commitment to win the war on potholes and ensure that we improve the quality of roads within Tshwane.
“As a municipality, we aim not only to fix potholes as they occur but to also accelerate resurfacing roads and preventing potholes from forming through quality road maintenance,” Stuurman said.
“With the successful completion of the crusher plant refurbishment project, the metro will no longer have to procure road building and maintenance materials from external service providers.
“The internal production will ensure that we manage service delivery costs. Furthermore, the plant has the potential to generate revenue for the metro through the sale of road materials to businesses.”
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