VANDERBIJLPARK – Gatvol residents of Leyd Street in SE1 came out in their numbers to take matters into their own hands.
This is after they decided to patch their pothole-riddled roads, again.
They organised about 75 bags of cold tar and patched dozens of their pothole ‘swimming pools’.
Machinery, dust from the rubble, spades, and brooms were the order of the day. Speaking to Ster, resident Francois Fourie explained how they lost confidence in the municipality: “If you don’t do it yourself you won’t get the help you need from the municipality.”
“This is a norm now, instead of waiting to get the municipality to fill the potholes, we rather do it ourselves. The vehicles getting damaged are ours,” he added.
Fourie said: “For more than seven years, we have approached the municipality on service delivery issues, including potholes, water leakages, and broken high mast lights, among many other issues without any luck. We then decided as residents to make a difference in our community by contributing towards fixing service delivery headaches. We have decided to purchase bags of cold tar and schedule repair days, where all men come out and help reseal these bad roads.” With potholes being the biggest contributor to car accidents, Fourie added why they try to keep their community accident-free.
“We saw the need to close the roads because of one giant pothole. We want all motorists passing through our community to remain safe. Some time ago, a motorist plunged into a big pothole and ended up on my neighbour’s wall,” he said.
