WORKING TOGETHER

CALL OF THE FOREST

Residential housing estates Plantations and Greenvale Village, along with other Hillcrest residents, land owners and businesses, are joining forces in an ongoing community project. Their aim is to rid the area of alien trees and bush that has become the home of many a vagrant; clear and clean up overgrown vegetation that obscures road signs; improve the safety of the roads by repainting the faded road markings; and applying to eThekwini Electricity for street light infrastructure down Shongweni Road – all the way through to the M13. This is not only about improving safety, but also formulating an ongoing maintenance plan to create a sustainable result. The project is centred around interchange 31, on and off the M13 both

Working TOGETHER A NEW COMMUNITY PROJECT IS MAKING A DIFFERENCE

east and west bound, the second of three interchanges that provide access to the Hillcrest area. Due to the size of the job at hand, the project has been divided into phases. Phase 1 began at the beginning of September and is almost complete thanks to Plantations and Wynne Landscapes and their dedicated and motivated teams – who fought day-to-day commitments, the heat, dense alien brush, thorns and alien trees to clear as much as possible. Unsightly graffiti, broken and illegible road signs, litter and fly-tipping (55 bags of litter disposed of via DSW and 20 bags of glass bottles that were delivered to the Hillcrest Recycling Centre) was tackled. As a result of the action taking place in Phase 1, it has been encouraging and motivating to have unsolicited offers of support from passers-by and from businesses like Don’s Tree Fellers – who donated the services of staff and resources to fell and poison 10 of the large alien trees that were dominating the area.

A local land owner, Colleen Whitton of Kayak Craft, who had already started her

Thank you to these amazing residents and businesses, who even in these tough times have seen the value of supporting this community project:

¥Mr H Coetzee ¥Oxford Centre ¥Build It – Hillcrest and Botha’s Hill ¥Infinite Property Management ¥DNKA ¥Corcoran ¥Supa Mamma Community Clean Up Bags ¥Daisy Business Solutions ¥Edoserve own initiative with her farm staff on ramp 31 to Pietermaritzburg – to mitigate the litter, vagrants and prostitutes frequenting the location – has now joined forces with the community project. Every little act of support will help achieve the goal of rehabilitation and ongoing maintenance of this interchange to the benefit of all Hillcrest residents. Phase 2 started in October, thanks to Greenvale Village – who has committed to supporting the initiative and adopted “Environment and Eco Friendliness” as their motto for 2022. Local businesses have sponsored funds to kickstart the next phase – namely the repainting of the road markings, to further improve the safety of motorists. The community project team has also created a petition for street light infrastructure, which

ABOVE: Plantations Maintenance Supervisor, Sbu Mdlalose, painting road markings. LEFT: Bottles pulled out of one section in just three hours. FAR LEFT: Chris Wynne and Tsitsi Fokoseni from Wynne Landscapes. will accompany the eThekwini application to extend the lights from Greenvale Village for a further 1,5kms, all the way down to the interchange 31 and over the Shongweni Bridge – mitigating darkness and hopefully the littering and vagrants. Many hands make light work, and local businesses and residents are encouraged to join the community project and “pick a spot” in need of maintenance and cleaning/ clearing. Let’s work together to bring Hillcrest back to what it was before the maintenance stopped. *

FOR MORE INFO If you would like to contribute in terms of donations of or for materials, or even your time, please email Alison Kitching on estatemanager@plantationsestate.co.za