PCB Blog - Picture Perfect Pietermaritzburg
Picture Perfect Pietermaritzburg |
| 2011/05/25 |
|
Melanie Veness: PCB CEO Pietermaritzburg has always been known as a pretty city, and has often been referred to as “the garden city”. But over the last few years, our public spaces have degenerated and, of late, Pietermaritzburg has received a lot of negative publicity about the state of our city. Confidence in our proud capital has taken a serious knock, and this has affected business confidence and investor interest. Now, I have always been of the mindset that if you don’t like something, then you should get off your proverbial and do something about it, rather than sitting in the wings and moaning. It is very easy to point fingers at the municipality that should be maintaining our public spaces, but hasn't really achieve anything. And I, for one, can’t sit about waiting for a solution. So, in order to encourage business to do something positive to restore the image of our city, the Pietermaritzburg Chamber of Business has launched a “garden city” project, in partnership with the Municipality, which we have called the P³ Campaign - Picture Perfect Pmb. The project takes the form of a corporate competition that encourages businesses to either beautify their own corporate garden, or to adopt a public space to landscape, such as an island or a traffic circle. Businesses that buy into the project will be allowed signage on their chosen site that will display the firm's name, the name of the campaign, and a “thank-you” from the municipality. The thinking is that a businesses that attaches its brand to a public space, will ensure it is properly maintained, and obviously, they will benefit from some very reasonably priced marketing. The project contains several exciting elements, including the promotion of SMME landscapers and garden services to maintain these sites on behalf of some companies. In addition, the PCB is also promoting the use of unemployed young people from an NGO, the School Leavers Opportunity Training (SLOT), to maintain the gardens. The idea is for them to be taught landscaping skills and for businesses to engage them on a paid maintenance contract thereafter. The campaign was launched on Tuesday last week, and I am thrilled to say that 22 businesses signed up immediately, and there have been many subsequent inquiries. So watch this space - we fully expect that the private sector in the capital will soon restore the "pretty” and "proud" nomenclature to our city's name! |
| Tags: Garden(2) Landscaping(1) Picture(1) Perfect(1) |
| Comments |
| No comments have been posted yet, be the first to post a comment on this blog |
