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People’s Post
NEWLANDS
‘This was avoidable’ NETTALIE VILJOEN NETTALIE.VILJOEN@MEDIA24.COM
T
he loss of a converted train carriage which went up in flames at the former Springbok Pub premises in Newlands last week was “entirely predictable and avoidable”. So says David Harris, the former lessee of the property and the current owner of Springbok Pub Observatory. Harris says when Springbok Pub relocated to Lower Main Road around August last year, he warned Prasa, the registered owner of the property, that something like this would happen if the property was left empty and unguarded. On Monday 5 October, City Fire and Rescue Service received a call at 10:16 for a structural fire at a disused building at 1 Sport Pienaar Road, Newlands. “Two fire engines with 10 firefighters responded to the incident. It took just over an hour to extinguish the fire. No injuries were reported,” says Edward Bosch, the spokesperson for City Fire and Rescue. The cause of the fire is still unknown. Kaparo Molefi, a spokesperson for Prasa Corporate Real Estate Solutions (Cres), says during the national lockdown the premises had been broken into and severely vandalised. “It is now the intention/strategy to formally demolish the premises and make the area safe and aesthetically pleasing,” says Molefi, adding that Prasa has been tasked with providing a safety plan for the station precinct. But Harris believes Prasa’s action – or alleged non-action – is too little, too late. The Newlands pub used to be a favourite local hangout spot. Harris’s lease, which began in 2002, ended in 2018. “We stayed on for a month-to-month basis after that, trying to renegotiate a new lease but we couldn’t reach an agreement,” he says. According to Harris, Prasa wanted a staggering sum to renew the lease. He says when they handed over the building to Prasa, it was in “mint condition”. “We advised Prasa if they didn’t put in security when we left, vagrants would move in,” he says. Harris says he tried to keep an eye on the property for a while.
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What’s left of the converted train carriage which used to operate as a pub at 1 Sport Pienaar Road in Newlands. “But, with no right of access, there wasn’t much I could do. The government owns the property. It was Prasa’s responsibility to secure it and they didn’t. Ultimately, it is the taxpayer who has now lost out,” he says. Both the Groote Schuur Community Improvement District (GSCID) and Claremont police say they were under the impression that a new lessee had taken over the property at the beginning of the year and that the property was being renovated. According to them, all renovations stopped when the national lockdown was announced in March. In communication with People’s Post, Prasa Cres states “the subject premises known as the former Springbok Pub was leased by Prasa to a tenant”. However, Harris says he wasn’t aware of any new tenant. All agree, though, that the gradual stripping of the
property intensified after lockdown. Barbara Breedt, GSCID general manager, says they received numerous complaints from the community, saying the property was being overrun by vagrants. Breedt says GSCID patrol officers, the police and other law enforcement agencies, did their best to ensure people didn’t move in there, but, she says, in the end, it became unmanageable. Breedt explains the property, situated behind SAB’s Newlands Brewery, is out of sight. It also borders the train track which, she says, became a highway for criminal elements during the initial lockdown. “The property was left completely abandoned without any sign of security,” she adds. According to Breedt, GSCID officers on occasion witnessed vagrants using open cooking fires there, but on the other side of the
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property, away from the carriage. Capt Deon Bock, the acting Vispol commander at Claremont police station, says, to his knowledge, no formal complaint of vagrancy was filed with the station before the fire. However, he says they were aware of the concerns surrounding the property. “One of the big issues was vagrancy because it was under construction,” he says. According to Bock, the property’s windows had been removed as part of the renovations which made the building easily accessible. “We patrol the area. We also do lots of clean-up operations with regards to vagrancy. However, it is difficult to police if the property is abandoned because the onus is on the owner of the property to secure the property,” Bock adds. At this stage, no case of arson has been filed at Claremont station.
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