By Nkosenhle Sibisi
Residents are urged to report faulty and non-operational streetlights to ensure the safety of pedestrians and motorists. This follows the introduction of a new project called, ‘Light Up Westville’ which is aimed at tackling the issue of faulty lights.
The newly formed initiative is a sister project of Keep Westville Beautiful. Both projects are part of the Westville initiatives formed by active residents and are aimed at keeping the community clean and safe.
One of the active members of the project, Liesel Muhl said that Westville is a community for everyone as there are a number of domestic workers and gardeners working within the community and most of them are pedestrians who most likely become victims of crime.
“Streetlights play a huge role in ensuring safety of community members. It is important to light up dark streetlights to promote the safety of pedestrians and motorists at night time. This discourages criminals from hiding in dark spots waiting to pounce on unsuspecting victims. Sadly many streetlights are not working in Westville and across eThekwini. As Keep Westville Beautiful we are passionate about the safety of everyone. Especially women walking to work or from work in the dark. We have a huge problem with vagrants and drug addicts attacking unsuspecting people for their phones and cash in dark corners,” said Muhl.
Muhl said that the only way the issue of streetlights can be fixed, is that the residents need to make sure that they report faulty streetlights.
“We need to stand together as Westville residents and look-out for each other. We call on everyone to help us to get all streetlights working. We are urging residents to report pole numbers which are faulty so we can get the municipality to fix the lights. A city which is not maintained, is dirty and has no streetlights working, makes for a bad investment. We believe that if we can fix Westville, we can promote investment, tourism, increase job opportunities and increase the value of our homes,” she said.
For more information visit, (www.keepwestvillebeautiful.org.za)
