Roodepoort’s Hendrik Potgieter Road collapsed bridge almost collapses businesses

Businesses along the Hendrik Potgieter Road — one of Johannesburg’s busiest roads — tell tales of almost closing shop during the reconstruction of the bridge. 

The bridge, on a section of a major road linking Johannesburg to Krugersdorp in Mogale City, partially collapsed in December last year during torrential rain.

It took the Gauteng department of roads and transport almost a year to complete the reconstruction, leaving businesses along the area in limbo and on the verge of collapsing. 

The road was officially reopened on Thursday.

During the road closure and the construction of the bridge, many businesses in the area experienced significant losses. 

Niel Engelbrecht, owner of Supa Quick Ruimsig, told TimesLIVE Premium he suffered losses of between 30% and 40%.

He said most of his customers from adjacent suburbs couldn’t travel to his business at the time. Getting to his business required they use back routes that were always congested as regular traffic was diverted to these roads during construction. 

“A lot of people come from the suburbs across the bridge, from Little Falls to Strubens Valley and Wilgeheuwel areas. For them to travel on that back road to come to my business was a nightmare,” he said. 

He said he started to see a drastic drop in his profits and customers in April/May when people completely stopped using the back road as it was always congested.

We tried to sell more on the account and with an account, you have to wait for your money, and for business to work it needs a proper cash flow.

—  Business owner Niel Engelbrecht

His shop had sold tyres for about 18 years in the area.

He explained that the implications of the year-long construction would be felt for a long time in his business.

“An average person buys a set of tyres every two years. Those people bought tyres from other tyre suppliers from their side and we will only see them in the next year or two,” he said.

He believed his business was taken by three of his competitors located on the other side of the bridge.

“There are three tyre shops on that side of the bridge. It was regular customers because we don’t only do tyres, we do breaks, we do shocks, we do batteries and we lost all that business,” he said. 

Engelbrecht said, for almost a year, they had to sell on credit on their commercial side, especially with truck tyres.

“We tried to sell more on the account, and with an account, you have to wait for your money, and for business to work it needs a proper cash flow.” 

He added that most of his customers who used cash were owners of passenger cars, and this affected them on a large scale as those people stopped buying from his shop.

Pieter du Plessis, an optometrist from Wize Eyes The Falls Optometrists at the Falls PnP Centre on the corner of Hendrik Potgieter and Johan roads, lost almost R500,000 of turnover during the construction period. 

He said he lost about two months of turnover during the year.

“I could have been closed for two months. Personally, there were about two or three months that I had to make plans to pay my house loans. I almost couldn’t pay for my house and various other things,” he said. 

He said some of his regular clients and those who purchase glasses every two years didn’t even respond when he sent them a reminder. He had to redesign his pricing and come up with a new structure, which didn’t help much. 

These, as his profit margins on his special prices, were small.

“We get extra expenditure on marketing like Facebook boast posts, Google Ads. We even went on Twitter [X] to try to put videos there and it was all extra expenditure. We also got advertising flags outside the shops with banners to show that we are located there, but still, it was the same,” he said. 

Du Plessis said he would carry the burden with him to try to settle the debts accumulated when the business was significantly accumulating losses.

He added that during the festive season, especially in December and January, his business performs better and he was hoping to use the time to recover the losses. He added that they have seen a spike since the road was reopened. 

“I was even considering suing the Gauteng department of roads and transport, but we all know that is going to be a losing battle,” he said.

During the period of the road closure, residents had to endure driving on the back routes with trucks diverting to their suburbs from Hendrik Potgieter Road. 

Cheryl Naidoo, a resident who stays on Sterretjie Street, said she was glad the road was finally opened after enduring a year of navigating potholes due to trucks damaging the road and from excessive traffic. 

“We were affected terribly by the crazy traffic for the whole year ... It would take half an hour or even longer from the time you enter Sterretjie Street till you could enter your complex coming from work,” said Naidoo. 

A motorist from the area, Natasha Watson, said she cried when the road was opened to the public given the experience she had endured.

She said it was stressful to visit a critically injured family member in Milpark daily, and getting to work and back home every day. 

“Even just commuting on the weekend was stressful. On Wednesday I experienced sheer bliss popping out to the shops and the back roads (from a traffic point of view — not infrastructure) being back to normal,” she said.