GQEBERHA – Broken road surfaces are becoming an increasing hazard in parts of Lorraine, with Ward 8 Councillor Gustav Rautenbach calling for urgent road resurfacing instead of temporary patchwork repairs.

During a site inspection on Friday, 3 July, Rautenbach pointed to Luneville Road, Circular Drive and Arras Street as some of the ward’s most pressing infrastructure concerns.

According to Rautenbach, the extent of the problems became evident after parts of the area, which had formed part of Ward 6 following the 2016 ward boundary changes, were returned to Ward 8 after the 2021 local government elections.

“One of the first things I did was inspect the section that had been away from Ward 8 for five years,” he said.

Luneville Road between Van Eck Street and Marne Street, where large sections of the road surface have broken away, was identified as one of the problem areas.

“The top part of the road surface has come off, so it is not a pothole per se. The municipality has tried to fix it with patches here and there, but in many places it has not been dealt with. It’s like a war zone.”

Rautenbach believes years of patchwork repairs have failed to solve the underlying problem.

“Whenever problems developed on Luneville Road, more tar was simply laid over the existing surface. Now the same thing is happening on Circular Drive, especially towards Kragga Kamma Road.”

He argues that both roads have reached the point where resurfacing is the only viable solution.

“You patch one section, but the road simply breaks up next to it. When you drive behind other vehicles, you can see motorists swerving to avoid the damaged sections. At times they move into oncoming traffic, which is dangerous.”

Rautenbach also highlighted several potholes in Arras Street, which, he believes, could eventually develop into sinkholes.

“At the moment they’re still small, but if they continue to widen, they could become sinkholes,” he warned.

Four large drums have since been placed above the potholes in Arras Street as a warning to motorists. According to Rautenbach, the absence of funding remains his biggest concern.

“My ward budget is R2.3 million, with R200,000 allocated for grant-in-aid projects. That leaves R2.1 million, but not a single cent has been budgeted for infrastructure in my ward,” he said. “I find it totally unacceptable that there is no capital budget available for infrastructure. My community has pleaded for funding to address these problems, but those pleas have not been heard.”

In a media statement, the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality spokesperson, Sithembiso Soyaya, said municipal teams continue to repair potholes across the metro while additional resources are being secured.

“The Municipality’s internal teams are working across the metro to repair potholes using the materials currently available,” Soyaya said.

He said an informal tender process is underway to procure additional repair material and appoint contractors who will supplement municipal teams using their own materials.

“Given the magnitude of the pothole challenge resulting from the recent floods, additional external teams will be brought in to supplement the work of the Municipality’s internal teams.”

Soyaya added that the municipality is also at an advanced stage of appointing contractors who will carry out pothole repairs over the next three years.

He said flood damage continues to create new road defects across the metro, making it difficult to keep pace with repairs.

“Potholes remain a moving target due to the ongoing impact of flood damage on our roads. As a result, it is difficult to provide an exact number of potholes across the Metro, as new defects continue to emerge.”

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