Lobatse streets name project concluded
Tumelo Mouwane | Thursday April 6, 2017 16:03
This is after the council’s departments of mechanical engineering and physical planning yesterday concluded the three-day kgotla meetings, which was to engage residents in the process of street naming.
Names mostly reflecting Lobatse’s history were suggested and they are yet to go through a vetting process before being confirmed by the ministries of Local Government and Rural Development and Lands and Housing.
According to the Lobatse Town Council public relations officer, Segametsi Kebonang, the project was conducted in preparation for upcoming postal mail home delivery system and for easy service delivery especially emergency services.
“Over 300 streets have not been having names. This was because the town continues to grow and some roads were constructed before plots were allocated. The councils relevant authorities decided to embark on the project in preparation for upcoming service delivery upgrades especially postal mail home delivery system.
“The project has been success and people really showed interest and showed how well they know their town. Names of historical influential figures, names of vegetation around town and those of historical events were suggested and they are yet to go through vetting,” she said.
Kebonang noted that service providers, especially emergency services struggled to assist residents because of lack of street names.
“It has been a great challenge for service providers especially emergency medical and fire services to locate homesteads in times of emergencies and I think by giving all the streets within Lobatse names this will ease their work and at the other hand benefit residents,” she said.
One of the residents, Boikhutso Monare said she was happy that the council engaged them in the process.
“At least we did not just wake to new names in our neighbourhoods. The council has engaged us and I am happy about that,” Monare said.
Another resident, Omphile Morwe shared the same sentiments. He however would want to see some of the names of old street changed.
“We have been fully engaged and that is what is important. I am satisfied with the level of engagement. The project was only concerned with unnamed streets but we thought some streets names would also be open to change because some are irrelevant to the wards they are in. They could be in different wards where they suite well and relate,” he said.