Cape Town: The Energy Team of the city have been hard at work and has ensured that some of the main travelling routes in the metro are as well-lit up as possible for residents and those flocking to the Mother City at this time of the year.
It also included Philip Kgosana far and wide from roadways, the R27, the M23 and parts of the N2 and other popular routes along the Peninsula teams continue to service streetlights and keep up the fight against the extreme levels of theft and vandalism that often impact the burn rates along the routes and in communities.
Other national and provincial agencies are also responsible for some national roads that include off and on-ramps and this unfortunately impacts the burn rate of lights as the City of Cape Town does not manage certain routes.
City of Cape Town’s Member of the Mayoral Committee for Energy – Alderman Xanthea Limberg has continued the streetlight programme visits which began few months ago across the metro and this time with a bit of a holiday focus in mind.
The City of Cape Town maintains more than 245,000 streetlights across the metro. While the other national and provincial agencies maintain some national and provincial routes consisting the on and off ramps of roadways.
Xanthea Limberg said that over the past few months they have been visiting streetlight maintenance and repair projects across the metro from Manenberg to Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain to Wynberg, Lavender Hill, Kraaifontein and Parow. This also includes the LED retrofitting projects.
Limberg also mentioned that as they approach the holiday peak season, they joined the Energy Teams on evening public lighting inspections across all the major routes in the metro to make sure that the city is a beacon of light to the residents and visitors alike.
She stated, “I have inspected the burn rate of the streetlights on major routes along the Peninsula, the M3, Philip Kgosana Drive and the r27 among others.”
“Our biggest problem remains theft and vandalism that impact the burn rate of the streetlights. We have our actions in place to reduce the risk but we need that our residents should also help us,” added Alderman Xanthea Limberg
She appreciated that in just over a month, they attended to almost 10,000 streetlight requests following the interventions to enhance the turnaround times – vandalism and theft that is being a major contributor to outages.
Limberg quoted, “So our message is clear: Let’s ACT and protect Your Power this holiday season! Criminal acts often increase over the festive and holiday season. We urge our residents to remain vigilant and keep an eye especially on electrical infrastructure in their neighbourhoods, in order to reduce the chances of outages or power cuts.”
Xanthea Limberg assured that she and her team is ready to step up to challenge for a brighter, safer and more welcoming city.