Houghton residents are using Google Earth to help them track and resolve various municipal problems including potholes, missing manhole covers and water leaks, which could save the council thousands of rands as they would be able to send a single team to the suburb to repair all the problems at the same time.

Houghton residents are using Google Earth to help them track and resolve various municipal problems including potholes, missing manhole covers and water leaks.

Residents in the suburb found that there were a total of 106 problems relating to leaking fire hydrants and water meters, missing covers, broken sections of pavements and illegal dumping. The faults existed in an area just one square kilometre in extent.

The problems were identified on Google Earth and the exact location was given to the council along with a photograph of the problem. Houghton resident and member of the Residents’ Association, Margi Marchant, says that she took her son with her on a tour of the streets to photograph the problems and then placed these pictures into a Google Earth map.

Since the photographs and the information was supplied to the council a further 20 problems have already been identified. The council has not yet reacted to the map and has not fixed the problems either.

According to Baldwin Matsimela, spokesman for Joburg Water, they were looking at the information provided on the Google Earth map and would escalate any problems relating to the utility to get them fixed. He points out that there is a misconception that Joburg Water is responsible for replacing missing manhole covers when, in fact, this is a problem for other entities such as the Johannesburg Roads Agency or Telkom.

Marchant has volunteered to walk the streets of Yeoville and Berea to assist the council repair infrastructure problems, but has yet to have a response from the council itself.

Readers' Comments Have a comment about this article? Email us now.

The use of Google Earth maps is a great idea.
There might be a problem at the Council if they are unable to access Google Earth maps. Sometimes I wonder if they can actually get into their own systems!
But the info is useful as it also allows potential buyers of what is going on in an area. - P. De Villiers

It is all very well to notify the the Local Authorities of leaking water mains in the various suburbs,but they are taking four weeks or up to three months to attend to the problems.
That is a lot of water down the drain or street or pavement in my opinion.
Ekurhuleni Metro should do something about saving the valuable commodity speedily,and not take weeks or months to do something about it. - Henry Walker