More tip-top than tipping point

Corner of Lena Ahrens Road and Alan Paton Road, Glenwood, Pigeon Valley UIP

UIP works to check crime, keep tabs on vagrants

CLAIMS that Glenwood is gripped by law-breaking and homelessness are far off the mark. If anything the suburb is looking better - cleaner and greener - while crime is in check. That’s the word from the Pigeon Valley Urban Improvement Precinct, which works to spruce up a large southern and western swathe of the suburb.

CLEANER AND GREENER: Glenwood is looking good thanks to the planting of several indigenous garden beds and regular grass cutting and litter collection, says Richard Thring, manager of the Pigeon Valley UIP.

The UIP was responding to recent media reports that suggested crime and homelessness had peaked in Glenwood.

Richard Thring, UIP manager, pointed out that in the past 10 days Durban hosted Africa’s Travel Indaba at the ICC and a G20 tourism meeting of national and foreign dignitaries in Umhlanga.

He noted that in the past, ahead of similar high-profile events, city authorities clamped down on vagrants who then spilled from the CBD into neighbouring suburbs.

Meanwhile, a clean-up of Albert Park and its surrounds, including bulldozing shacks to make way for a fanzone for the 10 May Chiefs vs Pirates Nedbank Cup final, had displaced perhaps hundreds of vagrants.

Thring agreed there had been more homeless people in Glenwood lately, but they were being monitored and managed — discouraged from sleeping in Glenwood’s public parks, harassing residents or breaking other bylaws.

He said the UIP and its partners, including private security firms and the Glenwood UIP (which looks after the eastern, more business-oriented part of the suburb), had matters in hand and were in contact with the authorities.

In the Pigeon Valley UIP, two dedicated, 24-hour patrol vehicles, and 48 CCTV and number plate recognition cameras had proved “extremely effective” in deterring illegal activity, he said.

Thring said statistics weren’t immediately available, but “we are making strides in clearing up the area and preventing crime”.

“Glenwood is actually being uplifted dramatically despite the disturbances in the CBD,” he said.

UIP patrols moved along hundreds of vagrants every month, while people who appeared to be up to mischief were closely watched.

On concerns expressed in some quarters that waste-pickers were contributing to a sense of insecurity. Thring said the UIP was part of the Zero Waste Project, which was helping to allay public fears.He said the project sought to put individual waste-pickers, who do good work recycling, onto a more formal footing, while making them more recognisable to residents.Turning to improvements in Glenwood’s parks and public spaces, Thring said the suburb was “looking good through the planting of several indigenous garden beds and regular grass cutting and litter collection, but we aim to do more”.

WAY TO GO: A little piece of history - the stone pillars at Windsor Tennis Club, have been repaired.

He mentioned a planned project that would involve installing bollards to discourage fly-tipping on the northern boundary of the Pigeon Valley Nature Reserve.

In Alan Paton Park, the UIP has put up solar-powered lighting in public spaces to improve security, while the stairs near the old tram terminus have been rebuilt.

Meyrick Bennett Park was safer thanks to regular UIP patrols and it looked better too after the entrance and pathway to the house were repaired and with more to come.