Cronje Park community fights back against litter, vandalism and neglect

Locals living around Cronje Park say they are fed up with how their beloved park gets mistreated, and have taken the initiative to protect it through unity.

The park in Pretoria Gardens in the west of Pretoria, has been a recurring point of contention in the area for many years.

Residents say that local football clubs which host their games at the park leave it in a state of disarray after their matches finish.

Complaints range from issues such s noise and drug use to littering, loitering, public drinking, open fires, and more.

Residents Johan Dercksen, Beverly Volschenk, and Vicky Badenhorst, alongside others who live around the park, have banded together to erect a fence around it out of their own pockets.

They say that they can’t stand by and simply watch any longer, adding that more help is needed to make the park safe and turn it into a space that the community can enjoy again.

“The soccer players are the ones dirtying the place up.

“They’re drinking, and now that we’ve fenced up the place, they’re drinking outside and leaving the bottles on the sidewalk, and we’re the ones who still have to pick them up.

“We’re trying to keep the place clean. We fixed the whole perimeter of the park on our own, two weeks ago. The cricket nets are destroyed.

“There are no toilets. We can have about 150 people or more during the weekend, and there are no facilities.

“For 150 people playing the whole day, somehow they must go to the toilet, so people do their business everywhere,” Berkson said.

He added that the municipality should install more dustbins, conduct regular clean-ups, fix the toilets, and increase police presence in the area.

The broken toilets have been welded closed, after being stripped of everything inside by local vagrants who used to sleep there.

“Nobody wants to use the park when it’s so filthy.

“We used to come here with the local primary school to practise cross-country, and the broken glass made that impossible… it wasn’t safe for the kids to practise anymore,” Volschenk said.

Volschenk adds that football academies that used to train at the park stopped coming because of the broken glass, and that the fencing cost them around R15 000.

She praised Dercksen, especially as the pensioner dedicated an entire week to putting up the fences, with others helping her.

“This is a community park, it’s not a stadium. If someone wants to adopt it and make it that, let them because then they can fix the fence, make it higher, close off the whole park, fix the toilets, make parking and keep it clean,” Volschenk said.

Badenhorst, who has been living in the area for over 20 years, said that before one would have to formally book the park to hold a game or an event, but now it’s a free-for-all.

“There’s no control, no one books anything, they just come in when they want and do what they want.

“The time that they had that system, the park was clean because we had the record of who was there, and when, so if it’s a mess after, that person would be contacted.

“It’s getting worse. Before, there were always car shows here, churches would come set-up stalls and sell, Juanita du Plessis even performed here once, and every time they would leave, they’d leave it clean. It was a real community park,” Badenhorst said.

She said that while reintroducing the booking system of the park, they would hold these soccer clubs accountable, and crack down on rowdy weekenders, but it isn’t something a handful of residents can do alone.

The residents say the entire fencing they erected is merely a temporary fix to keep the rubbish contained. However, they feel that the only way to bring back the park’s former glory is to make it a much more controlled area.

Local cricket clubs that play matches regularly at the park on Sundays say they are willing to come on board and help formalise and maintain the park, alongside residents.

Majid Iqbal, of the Friends Eleven Cricket Club, says that they haven’t encountered many problems with the park due to the generosity of the locals.

The club members have been playing at the park every Sunday for the past 5-6 years. They have already contributed to the maintenance of the park out of their own pockets.

“The people living around here and very nice, they are good to us. Sometimes when a ball gets hit over into a house, they’ll toss it back.

“At the moment, the only real issue is the toilets. We can contribute from our side, it’s not a problem because we are here together, we stay together.

“South Africa is my home, even though I’m from Pakistan; this is my home. I respect it as such,” Iqbal said.

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