Ward 73 councillor, Mia Snyman, took to the streets of upper Houghton together with a City official to identify problem areas that have seen residents become bears with sore heads.
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According to Snyman, the site visit conducted with Khaya Mabandla, Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) Region E depot manager, and resident Julia Hinton, focused mainly on Acorn Lane from the corner of Louis Botha Avenue to St Peter Road. A number of issues such as blocked or collapsing storm water drains, unsafe pavements, an open sewer, non-functioning streetlights and missing or faded street signs were pinpointed.
“The things that need urgent attention are missing covers of manholes or access holes. The covers are either broken or stolen and they need to be replaced,” explained Snyman. “It is very dangerous as someone can break an ankle.”
The councillor said storm water drains needed to be cleaned, most sidewalks needed to be fixed and potholes attended to.
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“The sidewalks need to be evened out so that it is easier for pedestrians to walk,” she said. “JRA used a special white chalk to mark everything that they need to fix and I believe that they will start at the latest, early next week.”
Hinton said the site visit gave her renewed hope in the City’s processes and she believed that this time around residents would see results.
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“We walked around and logged numerous issues. Acorn Lane is a busy pedestrian zone and people need clean, well-maintained paving and safe streets to walk along,” she said. “I feel inspired for the first time in ages that Joburg City is starting to work better and I look forward to seeing the changes that JRA has proposed, happen.”
Snyman said the day had been positive and a plan to work on these issues has been put in place. She added that she was looking forward to getting more done for the residents.
“It was great to meet the depot manager on site and to show him the problems with a resident,” she said. “I intend to set up more site meetings as opposed to just reporting and escalating problems and not knowing whether the depot managers understand the problem.”
