[Show as slideshow]

Trees, trees and more trees.  This is what Johannesburg City Parks have promised the community of Sunninghill and have already begun delivering many of the 1500 trees promised to the Ratepayers Association.

Arthur Talbot and Murray Nitch, residents of Sunninghill Park who are passionate about trees and who recently planted a large number of trees along Rivonia Road Ext where it meets Tana and our Sunninghill Community General Manager Kerry Mawson have been extremely busy over the past three weeks.  They plan to plant trees all over our suburb, starting with the newly built K60 and much to our delight City Parks have committed to supplying in excess of 1500 trees!!  In addition to this Hardy Kruger and his friend Michael Buchmann and business partner Stuart Andrews of AMA Dig Dig have sponsored a Xonix machine for two days to dig the holes for the trees. Residents have flocked to our assistance with money, lunch, breakfast and plenty of thirst quenching cool drinks for our casuals.

Kerry Mawson our newly appointed Sunninghill Community General Manager has been bowled over by the spirit of the residents and businesses in Sunninghill.  Her words after only two and a half weeks on the job were “this is awesome – I simply love this job”.

Watch this space ….. Sunninghill Community is only starting its campaign of beautifying our suburb over the spring and summer months and welcome every donation towards this initiative.

THIS IS YOUR RATEPAYERS ASSOCIATION WORKING FOR YOU!!

 Theft of motor vehicles has decreased quite substantially but unfortunately the theft out of motor vehicle and smash and grabs have increased.  Most of the theft out of motor vehicles have occurred in Shopping Centres in Sunninghill while the smash and grabs have occurred on the corner of Maxwell Drive and Witkoppen Road.  Sunninghill Community as well as Eskom have cleared the grass and some bushes to make it easier for motorists to see any would be criminals hanging around.  A big spotlight has also been installed to help light up the intersection.  The smash and grabs in July have dropped significantly.  PLEASE REMEMBER TO KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN WHEN DRIVING THROUGH HERE AND KEEP VALUABLES IN YOUR BOOT.

Although there has been a decrease in residential house breakins in 2010, we are still concerned that these figures remain too high.  Most of these have occurred in complexes and most of the thefts have been laptops and flat screen TV’s.  A number of these theft, especially the laptop ones have been “suspect” and are thought to be insurance fraud.  A sign of the tough economic times we find ourselves in.  The increase in business breakins have occurred in shopping centres with very few being in office parks.

One area that we continue being consistently successful is the violent crimes.  Here we believe our network of dedicated patrol vehicles, live monitored CCTV camera’s and crime prevention operations with the SAPS continue to make a difference.

  Well I have another story where an unpleasant situation brought out the best in the community. Early this week I received the following crime report via our webpage.  I have removed the name of the victim.

“I am the latest smash and grab victim on the corner of Witkoppen and Maxwell just before 7pm tonight. I have read the circulars the last couple of weeks cautioning residents against this intersection. I have to admit that I was preoccupied and was not aware of my immediate surroundings. My empty woollies lunchbox was on my passenger seat and I assume the brainless criminal thought it is my handbag. The modus operandi was exactly like you said. I was the 3rd to 4th car at a red robot with a car behind me so that I am boxed. He knocked out my window and my first reaction was that I am being shot at. When I saw the criminal up to the waist in my car I understood what was going on. I managed to fight off the criminal by poking my fingers in his eyes and nose and he left empty handed . A car followed me all the way to the Tudor road gates where I stopped and the driver, a young Indian gentleman, asked me if I was ok. He then told me what really happened. He was the car behind me and he saw that the criminal was approaching my passenger window. He then decided to reverse and drive around me as to hit the criminal with his car away from my window. When he reversed he noticed that there was a second criminal standing with his hand already pulled back ready to break his driver seat window too. The young gentleman then sped off and rammed the criminal into my vehicle pegging him whilst I am gauging his eyes out from the inside of my vehicle. He pulled away when the robot turned green and the criminal limped away empty handed. The young gentleman that acted like a knight in shining armour is a plumber and electrician that does work in the Gardens. Please can you tell people of this brave man and give out his details that our community can support him. His name is Quinton from AA Plumbing and Electrical and his contact details are 084 981 1241 or 083 522 6567 or 011 022 9162.”

Thank you Quinton for caring and not only helping this young lady whilst she was being attached, but by following her to our booms to ensure she was ok.

 “Due to the large number of Police (SAPS) that will be required to actually police the event, the criminals and the security advisors are aware that the World Cup period is going to be like another holiday period for the criminal fraternity. The SAPS will be concentrating on the areas most frequented by visitors/tourists. These will be at the Football stadiums, the Fan parks, ORT airport, hotels in the cities and the routes to the stadiums. This leaves the criminals to have a free run at the suburbs! The criminals are fully aware of this too. They understand that the reaction time for SAPS to get to an incident will be long – if they come at all.” The email goes on to warn of home invasions, driveway robberies, carjackings, kidnappings etc.  

At a recently held SAPS meeting I asked of the Sandton Police whether they had sufficient manpower to protect our suburb and others in Sandton over the worldcup and if we were going to be left vulnerable as the email in circulation suggests.  Those attending the SAPS meeting were told that the Sandton SAPS were to have additional manpower over this time and that they were confident that they would be able to police our suburb adequately, not leaving us exposed.  Certainly the crime prevention operations that the police hold with our security provider, Savika are going ahead over the next few weeks as planned.  Brig Billings the station commander of the Sandton Police Station has made the following response to the email above, again I quote:

“ Brig Billings has asked me to respond to you with regards to the e-mail concerning World Cup Security that you forwarded to him.

Numerous measures have been put in place for the Soccer World Cup, but members of the public must not confuse these measures with normal day to day policing activities.

There are specialized groups of SAPS members that have received call up instructions to police the stadiums, and ensure overall safety during the World Cup.  

These groups are mainly from specialized units, and not part of the normal SAPS members at station level.

Sandton SAPS will still have normal patrols and crime prevention duties.  Additional manpower for the World Cup is coming from members who are off duty, they will be called up during their off days to specifically patrol areas in Sandton which have been identified as high influx of tourists, and possible problem areas.

The focus for the SAPS is not only to police the World Cup, but to continue policing the station precinct as we would before and after the World Cup.

Please note that Sandton SAPS does not comment on World Cup related matters, only the Provincial office may.”

As many residents have sent me the “Worldcup Security Brief” email and are very concerned about the content of this email I felt the need to respond to all.  Our security team in Sunninghill is as concerned as you are, however we would hate this email to cause panic amongst our residents.  We run a tight ship in our suburb and have discussed the potential security threat this event might hold for us and have put plans in place to secure our area from criminals.  Our security company will be working very closely with our Sector Policing saps manager, who is very dedicated to Sunninghill.  Manpower, we are not short of and Savika are always available to assist the Sandton SAPS with any and all crime prevention operations.

We are entering an exciting few weeks and we as a team will be doing our bit.  Guards are being trained on what to look for over this time; guards are been retrained on pro-active patrolling and visible policing; rewards are being offered to our guards and reaction officers.  These rewards will vary in amounts depending on the information received or arrest made.  You know we will do our best — what can you do?  Be vigilant and report ANYTHING out of the ordinary or suspicious to 0861savika.  Don’t be complacent with your security, especially now.  Make sure you set your alarms and make sure they are working.  Phone your security providers control room, don’t tell them who you are and notify them that you wish to test your alarm.  Re-iterate to your domestics the rules about who they let into your homes.  The motto of “don’t trust anyone” is a good one.  When you celebrate the soccer, don’t neglect your security – don’t leave gates open, don’t leave garage doors open and if you need to press your panic button – remember – press it once and hold it down for a second or two.  DO not press and press again, many systems if you press the panic twice too quickly the one will cancel the other.  

If we are community minded, look out for each other, are vigilant and “security wise”, we will be fine. Let’s not let these fears ruin our celebrations – enjoy your soccer and go Bafana Bafana!!!

Security:

a)     Residential burglaries – we are pleased to be able to say that there has been a dramatic drop in residential burglaries in the past three weeks.  After going through a rather rough patch with residential burglaries averaging at around 5 – 6 per week in the entire Sunninghill, we have now seen a drop to an average over the past three weeks to between 1 and 2 per week in the entire suburb.  A special thanks to Savika Armed Response who increased their patrols in hotspot areas, this definitely seems to have worked.

b)     Smash and grabs – these unfortunately have now increased substantially.  The hotspot for these as has been in the past is on the corner of Maxwell and Witkoppen roads.  The criminals seem to alternate there times making it difficult for the saps and Savika to catch them.  The most common times are between 06h00 and 8h00 and 18h00 and 19h30.  At present the smash and grabs are averaging at between 4 and 5 per week.  The cars targeted are those entering Sunninghill driving west and the victims seem to be the 4^th of 5^th vehicle in the left or middle lane, stopping at the traffic light.  These smash and grabs will be discussed at length in our security meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning.

c)     Crime stats – due to the world cup soccer our weekly meetings with the saps have been cancelled between the 11^th of June and the 11^th of July.  Sunninghill Community Security will however be continuing to hold its weekly crime analysis and crime prevention meetings.  We would like to appeal to all residents, businesses and security companies to report to us via our webpage www.sunninghillnews.co.za – report a crime tab -all incidents of crime during this time as we will not be receiving crime statistics from the saps.  For our crime prevention operations to continue efficiently it is important for us to receive this information.  Those of you who use other security companies (not Savika), please encourage them to report crime to us.  They should always be doing this – the only security company that at present does this is Savika.

d)     Eskom strike – as you are all aware there was an unprotected Eskom strike outside of Megawatt Park last week.  Although there were a very large number of strikers the protest was without incident.  Sunninghill Community would like to thank Eskom for keeping us “in the loop” with regards to developments before and during the strike, affording us the opportunity to put in plans to protect our area should it have been necessary.  Special thanks to the saps, metro who handled the situation very professionally and for the assistance of Savika Armed Response and the Sunninghill Communities Chief traffic warden, Jerry Tom who directed traffic when necessary and kept a watchful eye to ensure there were no problems.  A community working together!!.

Grime:

a)     Monthly litter campaign – Good news – Builders Warehouse has notified us that they will as of this month sponsor casuals to pick up litter in Sunninghill every second month.  The idea was that this would supplement Plover Realty who have kindly offered to sponsor the other month, allowing us to make this a monthly cleanup operation.    

8 days to go — keep those flags flying high.

Sunninghill Park and Gardens – with these two areas having the highest number of incidents reported and in Sunninghill Estates with the lowest. 

The vast majority of these crimes were committed in complexes where only laptops were stolen.  What is blatantly obvious is that the perpetrators knew that the victims had laptops and that this is all they were after.  In some cases there was no sign of forced entry and in some cases windows were left open.

As ridiculous as it may sound, I urge you to keep your curtains drawn or blinds down when you work on your laptops and when you are not working on them, put them out of sight.  Please also ensure that your domestic is 100% trustworthy.  Most of these crimes are committed with assistance – information passed on or other.

Although we are, as is all of Sandton, experiencing these thefts we are still significantly down compared to previous years and other suburbs on violent crimes.

Linda Gildenhuys

Sunninghill Community Security – security@suncomm.co.za 083 440 2381

Sunninghill Community Security is about to launch a new initiative to combat crime and grime in Sunninghill.  This initiative will be an add on to the existing security measures of pro-active dedicated Savika Armed Response vehicles and live monitored CCTV camera’s and ratepayer functions performed.

The “Pilot site” for this new initiative will be Sunninghill Estates.  Should the initiative achieve the desired results, it will be expanded and rolled out to other areas of Sunninghill. What is the new initiative?

Sunninghill Community plan to deploy, in Sunninghill Estates, “Sunninghill Community Ambassadors”, 4 to be more precise.  These ambassadors will be dressed in Sunninghill Community uniform and will wear reflected bibs, clearly marked with the words “Sunninghill Community Ambassadors”.  They will be issued with two-way radios and will be in constant contact with the Savika Armed Response control room, dedicated patrol vehicles and the Sunninghill Community office.  The Ambassadors will fulfil a variety of functions.  Each will be given a route to patrol where they will: 

• Keep their eyes open for dumping and report any culprits or dumping sites to our office;
• Pick up litter on their route keeping the streets as clean as we possibly can;
• Remove unwanted and illegal posters
• Keep a lookout for open gates; poor security and report back to Savika;
• Keep a lookout for loiterers; vehicles parked at the side of the road with occupants in them; any suspicious activity.  Although these ambassadors will not fulfil or react to any security issue, they will report such to Savika for action.
• Assist us by reporting water leaks, potholes developing, streetlights not working etc allowing us to chase these up with the authorities as soon as they occur. 

Only un-employed staff will be sources so that we are not only helping our area but putting food on some families table.

Why Sunninghill Estates for the pilot site?  Due to the demographics of Sunninghill Estates it makes it a lot easier for us to measure the success of this initiative.  We are experiencing a number of issues with regards to dumping, service delivery issues such as streetlights not working, water problems and we have seen an increase in criminal activity in this part of Sunninghill that we have not seen in the other parts of Sunninghill recently.  

We hope to have these Ambassadors in place within the next few weeks and we ask that you all assist us with the measurement of this trial initiative.  As with all new measures put in place, we do expect to go through the normal teething period.  Please be our eyes and ears out there.  Don’t complain, work with us rather.  Don’t issue instructions to the Ambassadors, but report to us the good and bad and more importantly help us make a success of this.  Be friendly to our ambassadors and they will I am sure return the friendship and tackle their jobs with enthusiasm. 

We would like to thank Savika Armed response for supplying the Sunninghill Community Ambassadors with two way radio’s at no cost to Sunninghill Community.  

All issues with regards to the Sunninghill Community Ambassadors can be reported to myself on security@suncomm.co.za or via our website: www.sunninghillnews.co.za

 Linda Gildenhuys – Sunninghill Community Security – security@suncomm.co.za 083 440 2381