Safety on Potsdam Road in Killarney Gardens has once again come under the spotlight at last week’s Subcouncil 3 meeting.
The meeting was held on Thursday 20 October.
One of the items on the agenda was the motion of exigency; smash and grab incidents on Potsdam Road.
Joy Solomon, councillor for Ward 113, told TygerBurger that the motion was proposed by her and seconded by Meisie Makuwa, councillor for Ward 104, as her residents are also heavily impacted, being robbed en route to and from work.
On Thursday morning Solomon submitted the motion for consideration.
In her motivation she says that Potsdam Road, which links the industrial areas of Killarney Gardens and Racing Park to Table View and Parklands, is a single lane either way.
“At peak times and also during the day, the traffic is stationary due to the traffic lights which permit egress from these areas onto the busy Potsdam Road.
“Many people walk from Dunoon to their places of work in Table View or go to the taxi rank at Potsdam to take transport further afield. The motorists stuck in this traffic are sitting ducks for the smash and grab criminals strolling by.
“A prominent and wealthy business owner employing over a thousand Dunoon residents in his factories has experienced this trauma six times thus far, with a knife at his throat. His daughter has experienced the same. Their only mistake was to be on that road going to the family business.
“I raised this issue when Dan Plato was in charge of safety and security in 2012, and again when he was the mayor, requesting signage indicating this is a ‘smash and grab hotspot’ so people would not have handbags on the seat, but rather in the boot,” she says.
Call for safety kiosks
“I have also requested safety kiosks along the road, manned by community police. I repeated this request to the ward committee.
“It is now more than five years and still no action on this issue, while the crime just gets more brazen.
“Must someone literally have their throat cut before we take this issue seriously?
“This quality of service delivery is unacceptable in the long term and as a City that supposedly ‘works for you’, we need to take ownership of the problem and deal with it appropriately,” Solomon explains.
She proposed that Subcouncil 3 requests the safety and security directorate supply and erect at least two manned safety kiosks on either side of Potsdam Road; that “Smash and Grab Hotspot” signs be erected along the length of Potsdam Road as a warning, as has been done elsewhere and that local people from Dunoon be trained as safety officers to man these kiosks.
“This should be a sufficient deterrent to the opportunistic crime being experienced along this single lane road daily.
“If the safety and security directorate has other suggestions which might be more effective, I would be happy for those to be deployed as well or instead of the above suggestions,” Solomon says.
Motion supported
Makuwa said that as the ANC they support the motion as crime is quite high in the area.
Phindile Maxiti, chair of Subcouncil 3, said he will also support the motion and that it should be referred to the relevant departments.
“From our side, we will support the motion for onwards submission to the relevant department,” he says.
Maxiti adds there might be financial implications with regard to the erecting of kiosks and sign boards.
Capt Adriana Chandler, Table View police spokesperson, says they are aware of the robberies in hotspot areas and have regular patrols at these areas, as well as static vehicles.
“Numerous awareness drives have been done, local newspapers are asked to publish awareness tips, social media awareness is done on Community Policing Forum (CPF) and neighbourhood watch Facebook pages on a regular basis; crime awareness talks are held in the community by myself, outreach campaigns are held where flyers are handed out, and flyers are handed out to commuters during road blocks and at malls,” Chandler says.
