I lived in Krugersdorp all my life, which is on the far western side of Johannesburg.

When I got married I moved to Pretoria for a year, which was really awesome.

I then bought myself a house in Krugersdorp, as it is close to all our family and we just love the town.

Back in Krugersdorp, I found that some basic services was lacking, just a simple example the refuse removal sometimes would be 3 or 4 days late and quite alot of other headaches as well. All boiling down to management of the municipal structures and processes.

One example is the tennis courts in Krugersdorp-West ( a suburb of Krugersdorp ).  The tennis courts is part of a whole residential block within the suburb dedicated to recreational activities. The block consists of olimpic size swimming pool, boxing club, bowls pitch, library, community hall and the tennis court.

Of all these facilities only the boxing club and library is in working order. The boxing club is hired  by a private company that provides boxing lessons in the facilities.

The other facilities are infested(strong but it really looks that way) by squatters that live inside the building.  The swimming pool does not have any water in and it is overwhelmed by long grass growing all over.  This all due to the municipality not maintaining the facilities, and thus have seen the diminishing interest in the facilities and also the deterioration of the buildings.

I have recently given the DA representative in the area a call to find out what is happening, and if something could be done about it, and apparently he and some church groups have been investigating possibilities to get the facilities back into shape.  They tried to get an appointment with the Mogale City mayor, but he always tries to duck and dive meetings, always at some indaba,lunch or at a conference.

I also tried contacting other party representatives like the ANC but they just let everything fall on death ears, their response was just, they don’t have any representative in the area so at the end they actually just don’t want anything to do with the area.

I’ve thought about a few plans to get the facilities up and running again, and thought the best one to start with would be the tennis courts.  As you can see from these pictures, there are squatters living in the clubhouse, so that is the first problem, and that would be the biggest challenge, as you can see on this picture, it looks like the people have a baby as well looking at the baby bath standing outside.

What I am considering is drawing up a plan of action and then approaching the appropriate persons to find out what to do regarding the squatters first.

After that if the municipality does not want to have anything to do with it, as all they have to do is cut the grass and maintain the facilities.

Go to businesses in the area and ask for their help, paint for walls, someone to come help out to fix the courts, barriers and the clubhouse – a once off thing.

Then the next thing is getting interest from the community.What I reckon would be to go to the local school, church groups and hold some open days and hold some competitions days(or fundays).  One will have to get the club running again as well, ask a minimum membership fee like R50/year for the children etc.

There is much more to think about getting this to work, but I believe if we do not do anything, government won’t !  I have received 3 offers to go work in Dubai and Australia in the last few months, but I wanna stay.

Here is a few picturs of the tennis courts at the moment, very disturbing – this is within a residential area.  You can see on the courts and walls, how vandalists spray painted all kinds of signs.  How people came and stole the fence wiring around the courts etc.

I still can’t believe that the municipality does not even come and cut the grass. Pathetic if you ask me.  So let stand up and DO SOMETHING!

Wall is broken on the one side – someone was contacted to cut down the trees(probably family of some council member), they tookdown a tree or two and broke the wall to remove it and left it like that – been like that for months.

Bushes etc.

Spray painting on the walls, which one can get a paint company to sponsor the repaint.

Trees cut off, spray painting vandalism

Squatters living in the clubhous

Torn down wires

Vandalism on the courts themselves. Need to get sponsors for nets, and boundary fence

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