Residents save oldest bridge in Gqeberha as protest and pleas finally pay off

Within six weeks of staging a protest at the historic Wylde Bridge in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape, the residents who set out to make it happen received a commitment from the city’s political leaders to take action.

“We got everything we were looking for,” Eileen Leander from the Aloes community said. “We have a promise that this will happen within two weeks, so now we are waiting,” she added. Their bridge is currently being held together by plastic tape.

The Wylde Bridge over the Swartkops River connects Amsterdamhoek and Swartkops. It was opened in September 1879 and is Gqeberha’s oldest bridge.

It was refurbished in 2016 and painted in bright colours, each representing a burning issue, such as HIV/Aids, environment awareness and saving water. As a result it had become known in Gqeberha as the “Smartie bridge”.

However, when the refurbishment was done, the crossbars that imposed a height restriction for vehicles were removed and were not replaced. Since then the bridge has become badly damaged by trucks using the road as a shortcut to the Port of Port Elizabeth and by some motorists who get lost. Accidents and vandalism also resulted in damage to the balustrades, which are now held together with chevron tape.

Local fishers also said the underside of the bridge is in a worrying condition.

On 18 October, after residents’ pleas and concerns had been falling on deaf ears, they staged a peaceful protest at the bridge and handed a petition to the Nelson Mandela Bay speaker’s office. Next they started alerting traffic and municipal authorities to trucks ignoring the weight restrictions and crossing the bridge. The metro police and traffic officers came out on occasion and turned the trucks around.

Local councillor Annette Lovemore also started sending questions to the municipality highlighting that the bridge’s “tipping point” was near and that it would lead to a loss of life and extensive damage should it collapse while vehicles were crossing it.

She sent seven letters and all but one remained unanswered. The answer provided was that the metro was working on a plan. In her final letter she demanded access to the “action plan” for the bridge.

“With every truck that crosses, the bridge is put under strain,” she wrote in her latest letter to acting city manager Mandla George.

On Thursday morning, 21 November, all the efforts paid off. Leander, along with Frances Nkaki, also from Aloes, Francis Jeffrey, a representative from Amsterdamhoek, and residents of Bluewater Bay secured a meeting with municipal officials.

“We showed them our bridge and they agreed. They promised that there will be action within two weeks,” Leander said. “We want to thank councillor Lovemore too, because without her pressuring them we don’t know how long we would have had to wait,” she added.

Lovemore also filed a complaint in a letter to the Labour Department, saying she believed the bridge violated safety regulations. “The bottom line here is the fear that the bridge is not structurally suited to support the weight of these heavy vehicles – that each one of them, as it crosses, places undue strain on the bridge, and that the bridge will ultimately collapse.

“Such collapse could well result in deaths. We cannot stand by and do nothing,” she wrote. “It is my understanding that no budget has been made available to deal with the issue. I turn to you to take the requisite action to potentially save lives.” DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.