The Roodepoort division of the community organisation ICE stepped up on June 27 to tackle an eyesore within their community.

“The old abandoned building behind the Roodepoort Post Office on the corner of Gouvernement and Kotze Street has attracted the wrong elements into the CBD for long enough,” says ICE volunteer Emma Bezuidenhout.

Bezuidenhout said the building was little more than a ruin, and the overgrown grounds on which it stood were being frequented by illegal recyclers and used as an illegal dumping spot.

“Vagrants and drug users would frequent the building. We’ve tried in vain in the past to have this problem addressed, so we decided to step in ourselves.”

She contacted the Roodepoort police since the building had become a thorn in their sides as well.

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Colonel Engelbrecht immediately sprang into action and contacted the Citizen Relationship and Urban Management (Crum) department for Region C, who lent ICE a few workers and a TLB for the morning.

“We managed to round up enough manpower from the different organisations and from within the local community, and we did what we set out to do: Solve a problem.

“The TLB wasted no time clearing vegetation and flattening the ruins of the building, while the rest of the volunteers sprang into action filling refuse bags with junk that had been discarded in the surrounding streets.

“By the end of the morning, the transformation of the area was amazing to see. The building was no more and the overgrowth was cleared.

“The surrounding streets looked good as new, save for the many refuse bags that were neatly packed and ready for removal by Pikitup.”