Bitou Municipality actively working at resolving Dieprivier issue

Update

PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS – Bitou Municipality has clarified that although the Dieprivier/ Rietvlei Road is under the administration of the Western Cape Government, and not the municipality, it has been actively involved in trying to fix the problems residents in the area are facing.

Bitou communications manager, Andile Namntu, said that the road is a district road and is therefore the responsibility of the Western Cape Government with the provincial Department of Mobility and Infrastructure in charge of the project itself.

Namntu also indicated that Bitou Mayor Dave Swart has not been sitting idly by and instead led the Bitou efforts. "Bitou's Executive Mayor, Cllr Dave Swart, has been hands-on with constant site visits and engaging the provincial government to budget and fix the site despite it not being a municipal road," Namntu said.

In this week's edition of the Knysna-Plett Herald, correspondent Chris van Gass laid out the problems that six families who live along the road have been experiencing in recent months due to damage to the road caused by flooding in the area.

In this article, it was stated that Bitou Municipality could not provide comment before going to print. However, the municipality did provide comment on the issue but it did not reach the KPH offices due to network and server related issues for our correspondent.

We would like to apologise for any inconveniece caused, and KPH will follow-up on the issue with the provincial Department of Mobility and Infrastructure.

Road-users have had to navigate flood waters when making use of the road, which needs to be raised.