Long awaited upgrade to Plett airport road completed

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

The long-awaited upgrade to Plettenberg's airport road has been completed.

The Western Cape Department of Transport and Public Works and the Bitou Municipality officially opened two stretches of resurfaced roads outside the town on Monday as part of the R67m project.

The state of the town's Piesang Valley and Robberg roads have been a source of great contention for residents in the past few years, even as late as last year when they complained of potholes forming on the new surface due to heavy rains hampering the maintenance process.

The Robberg or airport road as it is known by locals will be the main entry point to the upgraded Plettenberg Bay airport where managers Indiza hope to introduce scheduled flights to Johannesburg shortly.
Indiza spokesman Riaan Cilliers welcomed the opening of the road on Monday.
"Improving access to the airport is a very good move obviously. We can expect signage to be placed there as well, which is excellent marketing for us."

At the launch, the department's Hannes Mouton conceded that the project had experienced many challenges but that now that it had been concluded, the Plettenberg Bay community would benefit greatly.

"We have had to make the roads better, not just for vehicles but for the many pedestrians who walk along them every day. We looked at the wider spectrum of road users," Mouton said.

"But it is not simply a case of building structures and doing road maintenance. You need to look at how you can achieve other objectives, such as creating job opportunities, alleviating poverty and equipping people with skills. "To this end, workers from the local community received R8m for work rendered, while an additional R350 000 was spent on training. A total of R5m was paid to local suppliers and sub-contractors.

"Our target is to spend 20% to 30% on local employment, and we can say with this project we have achieved our goal," Mouton said.

Bitou mayor Memory Booysen said the upgrades to these roads would hopefully be the first of many for the people of Plettenberg Bay.

The project started in November 2011 and 10.6 kilometres of road was rehabilitated. The last upgrade took place in 1981.
The roads have been widened (new 3.4 metre lane), a 0.9 metre surfaced shoulder and 0.6 metre gravel shoulder, while road safety has been improved through the construction of two new climbing lanes on both Piesang Valley and Robberg Roads.
In addition, two new guardrails were installed, drainage was improved and improvements were made to concrete line and open drains.

The main contractor was Vusela Construction and the consulting engineer was Gibb Consulting Engineers.