The community needs to get involved to make Brandwag a better and safer neighbourhood.
This was the message of the newly formed Brandwag Neighbourhood Association (BNA) at its first community meeting held on Tuesday (06/08).
Approximately 50 community members attended the meeting at the Brandwag Primary School, all eager to see their neighbourhood becoming cleaner and safer for all residents.
Brandwag is faced with challenges – many due to the failures in service delivery by the Mangaung Metro.
They battle with unreliable waste removal, sewage- and water leaks, lacking road maintenance and markings that are not being well-maintainded, traffic lights that are out of order and street lights that are not being fixed or replaced.
Tammy Morey, one of the directors of the BNA, says the community can help by reporting all municipal-related problems to the local municipality and getting a reference number.
This makes it possible for the BNA to follow up on all problems that are not duly attended to.
One of the action plans of the BNA is to have a website where residents can report all municipal problems with the corresponding reference number, as well as cases reported to the police so a proper database can be compiled to follow up on these cases.
Community members were also urged to join the Community Policing Forum (CPF) to help patrol the area and to be more visible, with the intent to keep criminals out of the area.
With an estimated 8 000 people living in Brandwag, it should not be difficult to get many residents involved.
Many of these residents are students and members of the defence force living in communes, but the directors believe that all house owners of these residences should form part of this association to make Brandwag a better home for all.
There are also many businesses in the area that can do their part in this effort.
The area’s white flat housing project is a huge problem – adding roughly 4 500 residents to the community.
One of the focus areas of the BNA is to ensure clean and neat parks that will also deter vagrants from living there.
The BNA started out as Friends of Brandwag, which cleaned parks and open spaces in the neighbourhood since the beginning of the year.
Now that the association has a formal structure, the hope is that more residents, schools and business will all take hands and work together and contribute financially to secure sustainable maintenance work.
The first action as the BNA takes place at Pierre Olleman Street Park on Saturday (10/09) at 11:00.
Residents who did not attend the meeting on Tuesday are invited to get all the information at this event.
Two wild olive trees were donated by Greenside and will be planted during the event on Saturday.
Direct all enquiries to Morey at 083-331-1915.
