Burnt-out Town Hall
Many Bathurstians are concerned that something constructive should happen to the burnt out town hall. To update locals on the status quo and to canvas Village opinion about this, a meeting was held on 20 Sept 2023. It was resolved that BR&RA would elicit additional information from the municipality as soon as possible.
After having submitted the PAIA application, we got an initial response from the municipality, namely
– Sregistry23100915190 – BH HALL – FIRE MANAGER REPORT
– BH HALL – NOTICE 072 2022 – BH HALL – SAPS FORENSIC REPORT
– BH HALL – VIAPLAN REPORT
We are going to get yet more documents from Ndlambe Financial Services on the history of the burnt-out hall, which will be made available as and when we receive them. Any BR&RA member may request to view these documents by sending us a mail via the contact form on the BR&RA website.
A request has also been made by the Ward 5 Councillor for a formal public participation process on the future of the ruin/site.
Road Network
Clean-up of Kowie Road: Bathurst’s municipal supervisor currently (September) has a team of EPWP people working with him. They have created a 1.5m walkway along Kowie Road. They also picked up litter etc. along the way. The clean-up included mowing the grass on some verges where property owners have not already done this.
A neighbourhood Road survey is underway by the Bathurst Striders in conjunction with BR&RA, where roads are in need of maintenance. The following problems are noted:
- Road Surface (wet and slippery, erosion, potholes, impassable)
- Road verge (obstruction of traffic, obscuring road signs, etc.)
- Invasive alien vegetation
- water & sanitation (location of water or sewage leaks)
- Telkom / Eskom cables (loose or damaged or impacted by trees)
- Fencing & gates (containment of animals)
The survey project is aimed at enabling us to arrive at a constructive way to draw specific roads issues to the municipality’s attention. For maximum traction with the municipality, our coverage of roads needs to extend to Nolukhanyo.
Presently we are attending regular monthly meetings with the relevant authorities, and hopefully get the Municipality to do the necessary repairs.
Summerhill and the big Pineapple
Summerhill has agreed to allow BR&RA to hold a pineapple festival in order to raise some funds towards the maintenance of our pineapple landmark.
Water supply
Municipal water has been a big issue in our community, as it has been very unrealiable in recent years. During 2019 the water supply from Golden Ridge dam was closed due to the fact, that there was not enough water in the drought conditions. Despite the Municipality’s efforts to pump water from the Lushington river, water supply remained erratic or brackish. Unfortunately, during the dam closure the cable from Eskom to the pump house was stolen.
Gavin Came and Patrick Grafton approached the Director of Infrastructure of the Ndlambe municipality and outlined the relative advantage of water supply from the Golden Ridge dam compared with transport of water in tankers to Nolukhanyo and the pumping water from the Lushington River.
The Municipality agreed to allow the Bathurst community to carry out the replacement of the cable. Patrick Grafton organised a crew to carry out the work and the cable was finally replaced during May 2023. It then became apparent that some valves and parts also needed to be replaced. The Municipality has ordered these parts on 6th June 2023.
Street Lights
All street lights had stopped working over a period of time. Unfortunately the municipality did not repair or replace them, and so Gavin Came asked Patrick Grafton whether he could look at the problem. Patrick found that most lights needed to have their switches repaired and he carried out these repairs. Residents can now happily enjoy street lights again on most of the main road through Bathurst.
Electricity
There used to be frequent electricity outages in Bathurst (besides load shedding) when the wind blew and damaged power lines that were entangled in trees. Patrick Grafton took the initiative to organise funding from the community (which donated R40 000) and contracted professional tree fellers who cut the cables free of the branches. According to the local Eskom representative, outages in Bathurst Village are down by 80%.
A whatsapp group called Electricity has been created specificallly for Bathurst. Should you like to join this group, click here.