The following was presented at the open meeting of the BBRA on Wednesday 11 May 2022 in response to a question from a member of the public.
Background
Six volunteers undertook an objective survey, using CSIR guidelines, of all the gravel roads in BB between May and August 2021. An Excel spreadsheet was used for capturing all the data collected. Five visual parameters were looked at and each was assigned a value between 1 and 5, with 1 being very good and 5 being very poor.
Gravel roads should:
- have a wearing course of compacted gravel 150 mm thick.
- be shaped with a cross fall /camber for water to flow off the road surface (undulations and flat sections will cause water to gather and damage the road)
- be proud of the surrounding ground (as level with or below will cause water damage).
Drainage deficiencies alongside the road due to substandard stormwater systems result in erosion.
All the accumulated scores were summed up per road and identified as requiring:
- routine maintenance, scheduled grading with some gravel to fill up potholes and erosion – 15% of the roads fell into this category.
- Corrective maintenance, roads that required huge amounts of gravel to recreate the 150mm compacted wearing course with the correct profile – 72% fell into this category
- 13% of roads require complete rehabilitation.
In essence 85% of BB’s roads require massive amounts of gravel. Out of the 50 km of gravel road, 42 km would need approximately 32000 m3, at R450 per cube, an amount of R14.2 million is required. The current budget for gravel is R2.5m per year for Betty’s Bay, Pringle Bay and Rooi-Els, this will cover about 7 km of road. Much more money was therefore said to be necessary for corrective maintenance.
Dustproofing
Dustproofing of roads was said to have been discussed and that it costs approximately R705 000 per km, meaning that it would be better to have gravel roads as it was possible to grade and add gravel at a much lower cost. It was confirmed as money much better spent not to dustproof roads.
An exception is Heath road as it links Wallers to Wheeler which provides a western route to the penguins from Porter Road when coming from Pringle Bay as well as Park road which leads to the Silversands beach main parking area.
It was put on record that dustproofing of roads such as Ixia did not work as the surface breaks up within a few months, Rob confirmed that similar problems had occurred in Midrand amongst the agricultural holdings. He reiterated that it was important to be very careful with dustproofing as it had to be done properly and emphasized that he had received complaints.
OM has a small roadworks team and it is in high demand
Rob said OM’s Brenton Baaitjies, supervisor of roadworks for the three villages, has a small team, who must do everything with:
- a grader
- a roller
- a digger (TLB, which has been broken since January 2022)
- a front-end loader (loading gravel)
- two tipper trucks (for gravel transport)
Only one job can therefore be undertaken at a time and even though BB has 60% of the gravel roads, completion of work in the three villages must be rotated.
Road grading schedule
A schedule exists for the grading of gravel roads in the three villages every six months, and Betty’s Bay east of Vlei Road towards Main Beach must still be done. Brenton has a map in his office at OM which shows where all the stormwater flooding problems occurred last year and is receiving attention.