Earlier this month I drove through East London on my way to the East London Yacht Club and my fellow travellers remarked that the roads in the East London CBD looked remarkably more dirty and untidy than ours in Port Elizabeth.
The lesson here is a simple one: PE is not so bad or dirty in comparison to many other similar cities and towns.
The other lesson is one of ‘Boer maak ‘n plan’ which is what four Democratic Alliance (DA) councillors Isabel Thompson, Sue Bentley, Trish Williams and Marion Mackley recently did by rolling up their sleeves to attack the unsightly weeds and overgrown grass pushing through the sidewalks at the corner of Old Transkei Road / Beach Road and up Hudson Avenue in East London.
These clumps of thick grass are forcing apart the cement on the sidewalk and result in dangerous uneven surfaces developing along the sidewalks, making it dangerous for residents to safely walk along these surfaces. Weeds and accumulated leaves in the gutters cause blocked storm water drains and huge dams of water every time it rains.
Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality (BCMM) acknowledges that they have insufficient and antiquated equipment to cope with all the areas that require servicing. In the meantime East London declines further in decay.
BCMM is struggling to cope with the overgrown grass on the public open spaces and other areas, some residents have ‘adopted a park’ or resorted to trimming the grass on the municipal sidewalk outside their clubs and business. Residents have, for a long period, been doing this anyway in an effort to keep their own space neat and tidy. Short grass and trimmed bush is a crime deterrent. Unkempt cities are known to be a draw card for easy crime as it leaves a lot of hiding grounds for a quick escape.
The East London Yacht Club is one of the hosts for two upcoming sailing regattas at Wriggleswade Dam near Stutterheim and we can assure you that the dam is much tidier, cleaner and neater than the roads in East London presently are.
Alan Straton
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