A resident who lives near the canal says the backyard was damaged last week. Photos: supplied.

Keanan Harmse

Several homes in Southfield, Heathfield and Steenberg located near a canal were flooded after the waterway was severely battered during last week’s storm.

Ward 72 councillor Kevin Southgate told People’s Post the canal sustained severe damage and has been in a state of disrepair for months.

“Several homes were affected. The damage initially started with the flash floods about a month ago and has been compounded by the current rain,” he explained.

A contactor was appointed to commence with repairs on the canal on Tuesday 17 June, Southgate confirmed. The canal ends at Princess Vlei. As the storm raged on, one of the canal’s walls broke down last week, Southgate confirmed.

  • Flood

People’s Post spoke to resident Peter Pappis and deputy chair of Southfield Civic Association who gave his opinion on the canal’s issues. He stays in Banier Street which is half a block up from the canal.

He says the canal is in dire need of repairs and that homes nearby and have been plagued for years.

“The canal has overflowed from the heavy rains last week causing damage to residents’ properties and their houses as well as causing many toilets to overflow. Southgate has inspected the situation and has offered to bring sandbags for the houses where people’s homes were severely battered. Since last year, two of the houses in Prince Charles Street had one of their boundary walls, including the canal wall, washed away.

The boundary walls of houses near the canal are sagging but now that the contactor was appointed hopefully all these cracks will be repaired but unfortunately with the stormy weather they can’t do much repair work and have to wait for better days to complete this work,” he said.

Prince Charles resident Ryan Williams Risseeuw said one of their walls fell over into the canal during the storm.

“The council should have fixed these issues before the rain started. There is no foundation to support the structure of the wall, that’s why the wall fell over as the people jack hammered the old foundation out.

“They started to repair in the heart of winter,” he said.

Concord resident Jason Allison said they have no back wall at their home to stop the flooding.

“At this point the property value is dropping as we speak, so we can’t even get the value it was a year and a half ago, so selling isn’t an option,” he said.

The City of Cape Town said it is aware that Overcome Heights behind Capricorn and Parkwood were affected by flooding but could not confirm the extent of the damage the canal sustained or if any humanitarian relief was activated for the homes that were flooded near the canal.

DRMC spokesperson Sonica Lategan added: “The DRMC received reports of flooding in Wolmarans Street in Southfield where eight houses were affected. The Roads and Infrastructure Management Services (RIMS) provided 200 sandbags. Flood kits were requested from Informal Settlements Management for 370 affected structures/houses in the Lavender Hill area. While reports were received of impacts in Parkwood, the assessments have yet to be finalised.

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