Cape Town - The City of Cape Town’s Water and Sanitation Directorate is advising residents living in Lotus River and surrounding areas of temporary road closures over the next few days, as its teams work on the sewer network.
The City Department, which has been actively rehabilitating the Cape Flats Bulk Sewer over the past months, has now moved to work in the Lotus River area. This will result in temporary road closures on 5th Avenue from September 25 until October 31, 2024.
The City’s Cape Flats Bulk Sewer Rehabilitation project consists of 28 km of bulk sewer pipelines in the Athlone, Hanover Park, Lotus River, Ottery, Grassy Park, Eagle Park, Pelican Park and surrounding areas.
The initiative, which is the largest sewer upgrade of its kind in the country, has seen the Department budgeting R796 million towards rehabilitating the sewer network.
The City’s mayco member for water and sanitation Zahid Badroodien said: “We would like to thank residents for their patience during this period. The rehabilitation of the Cape Flats Bulk Sewer is one of the City's flagship sewer rehabilitation projects, which will extend this infrastructure's lifespan by an estimated 100 years to the benefit of our residents.”
As work progresses, residents are advised of upcoming road closures needed to continue rehabilitating the sanitation system in the affected areas.
Commuters who make use of this stretch of road are advised of the following:
Traffic moving in both directions will be affected.
Sufficient signage will be available to indicate the detours.
During working hours, flagmen are expected to be on duty in specific places to direct traffic.
The duration could change unanticipated events outside the City’s control, such as bad weather etc.
Meanwhile, the Directorate of Water and Sanitation replaced 26 409m of pipes, about 7 104m of water pipes and 19 305m of sewer pipes between July and August.
According to the City, this comes after a very successful proactive infrastructure maintenance and upgrade programme for the previous financial year, where the Directorate successfully replaced 111% of water pipes and 96% of sewer pipes in several planned projects across the City.
Commenting on the progress, Badroodien said: “Our pipe replacement programme will remain a top priority for the City to ensure our water and sewer infrastructure is in tip-top shape, to reduce the number of pipe bursts and sewer spills and to provide efficient water and sanitation services.”
“We thank our residents for their patience while this essential work was being completed in their areas. We look forward to seeing more of this proactive work over the coming months across our city.”
Weekend Argus