The Malabar Sports Field in Ward 10 has lain derelict for more than a decade – and the Ward Councillor has decided, “Enough is enough”.
“I want answers,” Councillor Lenny Moodley, said. “We want our sports field back.”
“This sports field has been neglected for years and it is my major concern. The tennis courts have been neglected, everything is broken and there are even potholes at the entrance to the sports field,” he explained.
During the PE Express visit to the site it was evident that the remnants of the tennis, squash, volleyball and netball courts have not been used in a very long time. The only part of the facility being utilised is the soccer field, and sometimes the cricket pitch, but even these are in a state of disrepair.
The walls once surrounding the field are broken and missing, with just a few pieces remaining standing.
While another fence has been erected around the field, it is below a steep hill where one can easily fall and roll down against the fence, which the now crumbling original wall erected at the top prevented.
The stands were also previously removed, resulting in spectators now having to sit on the ground to watch the games – and the cricket pitch needs work.
“There have been too many false promises regarding our sports field. When you make a comparison between ours and some of the other sports fields in the metro, our sports field falls horribly short. There is something wrong here,” Moodley said.
He explained that the children of the neighbourhood have nowhere to go if they want to play safely.
“Sport keeps children off the street and it’s holidays now. Where must they go if they can’t play sport at our sports field? Right now they are playing on the corners of the streets and in bushes.
“That is not safe. They don’t have access to the Malabar Sports Field. I am calling for our sports field to be fixed and for free access for all of our residents to freely go in there to be able to play sport.
“I brought up this issue approximately seven years ago and from that time nothing has been done. No one is taking Malabar seriously. It is being left behind, neglected and abandoned,” he said.
Nelson Mandela Bay mayor, Retief Odendaal, said that the state of the sporting facility in this ward is unfortunately not unique to this community.
“We have seen how our community assets have been extensively vandalised over the last couple of years and council has also not maintained this infrastructure.
“What we have been doing is putting together a plan that will see us implementing measures over the next couple of months to secure many of our community assets,” he said.
Odendaal also emphasised that residents should be reminded of the key role that they play in protecting all public infrastructure in the metro.
“Government will never be able to protect and secure each and every government installation or community infrastructure. There is a plan and it will be implemented. We need an additional budget and that is why it hasn’t been implemented yet. We’ll have to wait for the adjustments budget and hopefully we’ll see an improvement in both the protection of our community assets, as well as maintenance and repairs of our facilities.”
He also added that it is unfortunately regrettable that the budget tabled and adopted by Council in June last year did not give a fair allocation to all communities in terms of ward-based budgeting.
“In the adjustments budget, the new coalition government is certainly going to be looking at a fair distribution of the budget because we believe that every community has the right to a fair allocation of municipal resources,” he said.
