With the announcement of the COVID-19 national lockdown in late March came deserted streets, empty public spaces and an eerie silence. Well most places except for Bridge City, a key commercial and retail node which experienced ongoing foot and vehicular traffic and required an agile precinct management solution to keep the area clean and safe in spite of reduced services.
The Bridge City Management Association (BCMA) precinct manager Nwabisa Mkhize says: “Bridge City bucked the trend as most businesses in the area offered essential services, under retail for food provision, as well as SASSA grant payments.”
Following the lockdown announcement, the BCMA quickly developed a management response to ensure the precinct’s safety and maintenance was not compromised. “We were forced to cut cleaning and greening initially during lockdown level five, however our security contingent remained the same. We experienced increased traffic from the neighbouring communities getting their essentials and the precinct was especially busy at the beginning of lockdown and month end.”
In line with government regulations, most stores did implement strict social distancing protocols to curb the spread of COVID-19. Mkhize reports: “While the social distancing was necessary to limit the number of customers in store, we soon realised we needed the full services of rubbish collection as many people were queued up outside buildings for extended periods. With DSW’s support, and that of our own service provider Green Africa, we managed to stay on top of the increased rubbish quantities.”
Contrary to the increase in people in public spaces, the precinct did not experience a spike in crime. Mkhize explains: “Our proactive and visible precinct security team together with the additional visibility of SAPS, Metro Police and SANDF ensured that crime levels remained stable with only a few incidents of common robberies being reported within the precinct. The management team has since noted the areas where these crimes took place were CCTV coverage blind spots for CCTV and have increased the reaction vehicle patrols to these areas.”
Now a month into level three, Mkhize reports that it’s now business as usual in Bridge City and the precinct was not adversely affected by the lockdown. “With a sound precinct management plan, the Management Team was able to minimise the potential risks of the pandemic within the Precinct and Bridge City is once again thriving in the new normal,” she concludes.
MAIN IMAGE: Courtesy of Tongaat Hulett Properties
