Businesses, especially the Naboom business forum are outraged at the reconstruction plans for the main street in the Mookgophong city center.
The South African Roads Agency SANRAL recently signed a contract that is awarded to KPMM for the rebuilding of Mookgophong’s main street, Thabo Mbeki Street.
Mokone du Preez, the vice-chairman of the forum, told Die Pos, “The business forum was unhappy with the proposals.”
At the first public meeting held on Wednesday, August 10, the 45 companies who attended the meeting were told that two lanes of the road will be excavated to a depth of 500 mm and then rebuilt and paved. After the excavation, the opposite direction’s two lanes would be rebuilt.
Johan Grobler of LEO Consulting, the consulting engineers, chaired the meeting. Grobler confirmed that the street is part of the R101 that is now declared a national highway. This announcement had been published in the Gazette on Wednesday, June 22.
A one-meter island will be built in the middle of the road. The island will extend from the bridge at Obaro to Big L Steel. Traffic will only be able to turn at intersections. During the building process, ramps and openings will be provided for temporary access to business and service stations, although there will be some inconvenience.
According to SANRAL, the whole process will start soon and will be completed over a period of 12 months. It would mean that a section of the road would be closed during December until next April 2017. The island was the main topic of discussion and many people at the meeting indicated that for practical reasons they do not support the island design.
Grobler has undertaken to refer the island design back to the engineers and SANRAL who will then take a final decision.
In reality, “from a business point of view this means that visitors and motorists traveling from Mokopane’s side, will not be above to access other companies on the other side of the road. Delivery trucks entering the main street will also be affected as the road will be one meter narrower, “said Du Preez.
The Naboom business forum will discuss the matter with the consulting engineers at SANRAL and have drafted a petition to delay the process until all discussions are completed.
At the meeting, it was decided that all communication would be undertaken by Naboom Business Forum, chaired by Kobus Briel. All objections must be submitted to Annemarie Potgieter’s office. Follow-up meetings will intermittently occur when requested.
South Africa Today – South Africa News
