Hanover Park vendors are pleased with the City’s improvements to their market but hope more will be done soon.
The R1.7 million project has seen the plaza levelled and tarred, and there are kerbs and numbered bays for stalls.
Funding came from the mayoral urban regeneration programme, according to Grant Twigg, mayoral committee member for urban management.
‘’The City is striving to create an enabling and supportive environment for informal traders to operate their businesses in a manner that ensures consistency, self-sustainability and a positive relationship with the formal sector and community,“ he said.
The vendors played an important role in the community and the economy and were a source of income for the unemployed, he said.
“We will like to encourage the informal traders to continue to abide by the City’s by-laws and engage their ward councillor should they have any concerns so that we can assist where possible.”
Nazeem Benjamin, deputy chairman of the Hanover Park Traders’ Association, said they were happy with the progress of the upgrade, but the market’s lighting still needed to be fixed.
“So far the upgrades are on track; this is only phase 1,” he said. “What we like is the way they engaged with us and consulted us before doing anything, which was a different case before.”
The project had added an extra 20 bays for stalls to the existing 100, he said.
“We are also waiting on the toilets to be repaired, which we hope will be done soon,” he said.
Aisha Singh, who has sold food at the market for about a decade, said the toilets were in such a poor state that they could not use them. Some of the stallholders used public toilets across the road, but they were also very unhygienic, and she rather walked home if she needed to relieve herself.
“Then I have to get someone to stand at my stall, and it’s such a hassle. There are all sorts characters walking into the toilets, and they smoke drugs in there. When we come in the morning, some of our trestles and tops are missing and it’s not cheap to replace it every time.”