Manholes temporarily covered during road works

George Municipality comments on closed-up manholes:

With reference to the article, “Plaaslike besighede vir dae sonder Telkom-foonlyne” (George Herald, 6 December), the George Municipality would herewith like to correct inaccurate comments made by Mr Farrell, chairperson of George Business Chamber. The George Civil Engineering Services department is currently in progress with GIPTN road upgrades to Courtenay Street, amongst others. Unfortunately, there are often manholes situated in the roadway, and achieving a final smooth road surface is challenging if there are obstacles.

In order to ensure that the final road surface is smooth and even, all manholes are temporarily covered during the placing of the final premix layer. Before this is done, the position of each manhole is recorded with the relevant GPS coordinates. The manholes are then re-opened once the road has been surfaced, by saw-cutting out the shape of the manhole lid/cover. The lid/cover is then lifted to the final road premix level, to provide a flush fit.

With reference to Telkom manholes, Telkom has existing wayleave permission to work/open any of their infrastructure.

In this instance, no communication was received by the Civil Engineering Department from Telkom to request that the sealed manhole/s be opened. As soon as the department was made aware of the problem, via the Business Chamber, the matter was resolved within a few hours.

This is an unfortunate and unnecessary incident, and the department can assure the community that no service will be interrupted if it is at all possible to avoid.

Telkom has not yet responded to queries from the newspaper sent out last week.