Through the means of working together and businesses challenging each other, more than 40 potholes across Nelson Mandela Bay have been repaired by organisations over the past few weeks and the challenges are continuing.
What started as the “Gatvol PE” campaign by Laurie van Huyssteen from Rennasance Construction has reached new heights as more and more organisations are getting involved to help repair potholes.
During PE Express’s visit to Ward 8, director of Themar Construction, Theo Schoultz and his team were on site fixing potholes after they were challenged by another company, Schaëfer Attorneys, in partnership with Schaëfer Development Trust, which were also the first organisations to be challenged by Van Huyssteen.
“This is a community project where members of the community can get involved to repair a pothole or challenge a contractor to repair one. If someone is not able to fix the pothole themselves, they are welcome to donate anything towards the repair, even if it’s just a bag of asphalt,” Schoultz said.
He explained that residents and businesses can access a website, www.gatvolpe.co.za, to drop a pin location where they have seen a pothole. The locations will be colour coded, so if a pothole location appears as orange, it still needs to be “adopted” and repaired by someone. Once it has been fixed, it changes to green.
“The whole project is aimed at making our Friendly City a better and safer place for our motorists so that they can move from point A to B without hitting a pothole at some or other spot. This can lead to major vehicle damage,” he said.
“This way we can fix potholes step by step to make the metro’s roads safer for all. There is also a video on the website mentioned with instructions on how to repair a pothole,” he added.
He mentioned that Van Huyssteen managed to get Build it in Circular Drive involved with the project by asking them to stock the asphalt and become a distributor.
Build it and Rennasance Construction also donated 100 bags of asphalt each towards the project.
“Let’s work together as businesses with the community to ensure that the roads we use daily for business and to drive our kids to school, are safer and in a better condition.”
Ward 8 Councillor, Gustav Rautenbach, said that he is ecstatic about this project. He stumbled across Schoultz in Macon Road and thought that they were busy digging a trench, so he spoke to him and was told about the challenge.
“I was aware of it but I am very much delighted that businesses and residents are coming together to help get the metro working again,” he said.
“What these businesses are doing cost thousands and it is unbelievable; I don’t have words to express. There are a lot of potholes and many of them are of such a nature that they damage vehicles and then those become claims against the municipality.
“This is absolutely excellent work and goes so well with the mayor’s campaign of getting Nelson Mandela Bay working again. In my ward, some of my people and I have started sweeping the streets and cleaning public open spaces.
“I am really ecstatic about this because some of these potholes have been here for a long time. On behalf of my ward I would like to thank everyone who has been involved and will still become involved for doing such wonderful, helpful work,” Rautenbach said.
