This article from ST FRANCIS BAY – The Official Community Group❤️
Q1: How many potholes were fixed and paid for by the community this year on the R330 from Humansdorp to Cape St Francis?
Answer: Over 600.
Q2: How many new potholes have opened up since the above project ended?
Answer: 446 new potholes in the past three months have opened up. This isnt a thumbsuck, its an actual count done today.
From Links circle to Oyster Bay/ River Club turnoff – 81 new potholes.
From there to the College entrance road – 77 new potholes.
From there to Paradise turnoff- 214 new potholes.
From there to the dip – 74 new potholes.
446 new potholes in the past three months.
In December 2024 reps of our community group met with the municipal engineer and SFPO and “warned” that the road would crumble in the next few years, especially with heavy groyne rock trucks and the population increase and related construction and building traffic.
We strongly requested the municipality to try and influence Provincial Roads to prioritise the tender to rehabilitate the Humansdorp to Cape St Francis route rather than the low traffic volume Humansdorp to Patensie route. We were told that the municipality has no influence over Provincial government, even though an inter- governmental forum exists for this type of issue to be discussed.
We asked that the roleplayers, including Provincial Roads, SFPO and KLM, prepare a plan with budget to deal with this road damage when it would inevitably happen.
Nothing came of our suggestion.
Now we have a situation where the road is crumbling, and lives are at stake. Business will suffer, if it isn’t already noticing a decline.
100 days ago the Mayor declared a dispute with the provincial MEC for Transport, over their non-performance in maintaining the provincial road network. This dispute process is dragging on and on, even though the applicable Act states that it should be handled “promptly”. The 100 days of no resolution is certainly not “promptly”.
The mayor is preparing to go the legal route, however because all negotiation efforts haven’t been exhausted, the legal route might not be successful. The Act calls for a meeting between the parties, but this has not even taken place.
The silver lining is that the tender to fix the whole road from Humansdorp to Cape St Francis will likely (hopefully) be awareded soon. Realistically though, the successful contractor will only likely start work in the new year.
Without a formal agreement between the municipality and Provincial government, the municipality is not allowed to fix the road.
The critical period is from now to when thd contractor can take responsibility for fixing the road.
The community shouldn’t have to be exposed to shockingly dangerous road conditions because of a delayed tender procurment process, and an intergovernmental dispute process which is taking forever.
Lives are at stake. Business is suffering.
—
Recent Comments