Hoy Street residents up in arms over service delivery failure
Residents of Hoy Street, Discovery, say they are under siege from criminals due mostly to the lack of service delivery in the area.
Residents in Hoy Street in Discovery are fed up with their pleas to entities being ignored.
According to Kurt Edwards, their street is fast becoming a haven for criminals who use the cover provided by tall grass across the road along the railway line, both on the sidewalk and on Prasa property to hide.
“They can easily scope out our homes from the tall grass and uncut bushes,” says Edwards, adding that escape is as simple since there is lots of cover.
“Criminals’ escape is further facilitated by the fact that there are large areas where Prasa property is not fenced off, providing easy escape routes over the train tracks.
“There is also a stormwater pipe into which they duck, which leads into another neighbourhood.”
A short walk up the street reveals that, in addition to housebreaking, illegal dumping has also become rife. Barely a step onto the sidewalk, hidden in between the tall grass and bushes, rubbish bags, garden rubble, and refuse of every imaginable sort are scattered.
“This is not done by residents in our street,” says Edwards. “People see that the area is not being maintained and they come here from elsewhere, park their cars during a quiet time of day, and dump their rubbish here.”
Those residents who can afford to do so have started hiring help at their own cost to clean the sidewalks across from their houses.
“Unfortunately, we are not all in the position to do that,” says Edwards. “Besides, we pay our rates and taxes. It is not our job to do the work of the entities.”
Another resident, Nomsa Ntsele, who lives alone, shares that her house was burgled on December 31.
“These things are happening more frequently and we feel powerless to do anything about it,” she says while pointing out to the Roodepoort Record that besides the uncut grass and bushes, trees are starting to grow from the road surface.
The Record has contacted Johannesburg City Parks and Zoos, who replied with a statement announcing the entity’s Mega Blitz campaign, which kicked off on January 23 in Region A to address festive season backlogs.
The statement makes no mention of when the campaign will be implemented in Region C though.
Residents also pointed out that all the streetlights in Hoy Street are burning 24 hours per day.
