The state of the residential area and the lack of service from City of Johannesburg (CoJ) have become major concerns for the community of Weltevreden Park and the Panorama Residents Association (PRA).
Chairman of the PRA, Dave Baxter has done many radio interviews about the state of his area and the lack of service. Dave runs his own maintenance business and in his limited spare time he tries to improve his neighbourhood.
According to PRA, potholes were reported in August 2020 and a multiple escalations were later logged, but still they were not attended to.
This forced the community of Weltevreden Park together with PRA and EC Security to use their own resources and ensure that they repair the damaged roads in their area.
The residents filled approximately 80 potholes, some of them so big that they required close to 75kg of tar to be filled.
According to Dave, the PRA membership comprises 500 households, with about a thousand members.
“We report the potholes to the council and nothing gets done; we get it escalated and nothing gets done; and then it gets lost in the system. This is when we took it upon ourselves with some assistance from a local security company to start filling up potholes and making a difference,” said Dave.
Dave revealed in an interview with BizNews Radio on 12 April that the council arrived the day after they had started filling potholes. “It’s strange that the potholes that were fixed by the council have already opened up again and the ones that we repaired are still closed,” he said.
