Road upgrades for Bendor, Ivy Park, Penina Park and Central Polokwane
Roads in key Polokwane suburbs are to receive upgrades as part of a R16m rehabilitation project managed internally by the municipality.
POLOKWANE – The Polokwane Municipality last Thursday launched a road rehabilitation programme in parts of Bendor, Ivy Park, Penina Park and Polokwane Central.
The three-month project comes at a cost of R16m.
Internal road maintenance in residential areas includes Neethling, Pierre, Rhodesdrift, Crescent, Pafuri, Campbell and Oost streets.
While the municipality has yet to confirm an exact start date, it said the work would begin soon.
This follows the recent start of a 2.5km road maintenance project along Nelson Mandela Drive, from its intersection with Rissik and Silicon Streets.
That project began on July 16 and is expected to be completed by September 16. To cut costs and redirect funds, the municipality opted to manage the project internally without appointing external consulting engineers.
“We are proving that public funds can go further when managed wisely,” Mayor John Mpe said during the launch. Ahead of the event, the mayor expressed pride in moving away from a “costly cycle of regravelling roads since 2022, only to see the work undone by seasonal rains.”
In a separate statement by the municipal communications unit, Mpe noted that a more sustainable approach has been adopted: roads will be tarred where possible, paved if necessary, and only regravelled using the municipality’s own yellow fleet.
Potholes have also been filled in Dorp, Grobler, Thabo Mbeki, Church, Bodenstein, R101, and most recently Nelson Mandela Drive.
Polokwane Observer recently published a docu-series on social media which highlighted pothole-ridden roads across the city, while other videos showed how non-functioning streetlights left parts of the city shrouded in darkness, especially during the heart of winter.
