The fight to clear car washers from the Quigney beachfront has revived community engagement in the suburb.
Now those at the forefront of the cleanup have formed a ratepayers’ association to tackle the community’s woes.
Quigney residents were fed-up with the car washers who had established themselves in the parking areas on the beachfront.
Buoyed by the city’s fresh moves to introduce a bylaw to ban unregistered car washers and fine the car owners who use them, the residents took to the streets to remove the car washers.
Once the bylaw has been passed by the council, an illegal car wash operator could face a one-month jail sentence or a R5,000 fine.
The residents have established the Quigney Residents and Ratepayers’ Association.
Secretary Velani Gola said they had set up the association because they were tired of scrappy service delivery.
“[The organisation is] an apolitical organ to help [residents], among others, oversee the municipality and how it services them,” he said.
“The association recently launched a cleanup campaign which saw huge participation of stakeholders including the BCMDA, BCMM law enforcement, local economic development, businesses on the beachfront and crime patrol groups.”
He said their initiatives on the beachfront were beginning to pay the envisaged dividends as the car washers were now complying with law enforcement officers and the roving crime patrol group.
Association chair Satish Nair said the removal of the car washers was just “project one”.
Project two would target waste, first dealing with dirty water flowing onto the beach.
“Included in that project will be the pipelines which criminals are breaking [to steal water].
“Then we will start with the roads infrastructure, including potholes.
“We are taking [it] one by one,” Nair said.
“We don’t want to bombard everything on the municipality, we want to handle it project by project.”
He said the plan was to put pressure on the municipality to attend to the challenges — as it had done with the beachfront car washers.
“We ratepayers are saying we just want to see our rates being used appropriately in Quigney.”
Nair said the body would also ask questions about other issues affecting the ward, including budgets.
He said they had a right to ask BCM how their money was being allocated and spent.
“Generally, we are trying to clean up Quigney — that is our goal and it is possible.
“We are going to do it. We have proved it in the past two or three weeks.”
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