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TUESDAY 13 October 2020 | Tel: 021 910 6500 | Email: post@peoplespost.co.za | Website: www.peoplespost.co.za
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People’s Post
United in prayer Adhering to Covid-19 restrictions, about 120 police officers attended a Wynberg Cluster Prayer Day held at Church-On-Main in 3 Millbank Road, Wynberg, on Friday 2 October. Capt Silvino Davids, the event’s programme coordinator, said seeing that September was Police Safety Month, it was felt a prayer day would be a fitting end to the month. Pastor Nick Chadwick of Church-on-Main, Father Manuel Fernandes of Corpus Christi, Sheikh Abdurahmaan (Omar) Sadien, Imam of the Yusufeyyah of Masjid Mosque and Pastor Charmain Daniels, a former police officer, each said a prayer for the brave men and women who serve in the police force. Geoff Fox, chair of the Wynberg Community Police Cluster Board, also shared a few words on the day. On behalf of the community in the Wynberg cluster, Fox expressed his appreciation of the service the police members provided during “not only the stressful and challenging times brought about by Covid, but also the added real risks to their personal safety in the fight against the criminal elements that are active across the nation”. The officers attending the event also took a moment to commemorate their fallen. The symbolic lighting of 12 candles – 11 small ones representing the precincts from Mowbray to Cape Point with a larger one representing the mother body – formed part of the proceedings. Pictured is Col Rufie Nel, station commander of Wynberg police station.
PLUMSTEAD
South Road saga drags on NETTALIE VILJOEN NETTALIE.VILJOEN@MEDIA24.COM
T
enants of the council-owned houses located on the Plumstead side of South Road reserve claim they have been left out of the loop with regards to the City of Cape Town’s immediate plans for these properties earmarked to be replaced by a MyCiti trunk route in the future. In 2014, the City confirmed that 26 occupied council-owned houses and six vacant houses needed to be demolished to make way for a MyCiTi trunk route that would come through Wynberg and Plumstead. The route would form part of Phase 2A of the Integrated Rapid Transport (IRT) project which back
then was scheduled to start in 2015. Five years and a couple of court cases later, tenants are still living with uncertainty. To date, 21 of these properties are still occupied. The remaining five stand empty. Representing these tenants is the South Road Families Association (SRFA). Clive Muller, a spokesperson for SRFA, ascribes the City’s apparent “silence” to next year’s local elections. He claims, after all the heat generated around this contentious issue in the past, the City won’t just act outright against tenants now out of concern that it would affect its chances at the polls. “There is a political battle going on in the Western Cape for the hearts and minds of its residents. For any party to win, it has to have the support of the people of colour.” He claims the City is playing a balancing
act between its voters and its financial backers, which, he claims, are mostly property developers hoping to capitalise on the prime land which will border the projected routes. The South Road saga began in September 2014 when tenants living in the reserve received notices to vacate city-owned rental properties. In March 2015, the Western Cape High Court granted an urgent interdict to halt the evictions. This sparked an ongoing court battle between SRFA and the City which would eventually end in the Western Cape High Court upholding the City’s appeal in the matter in February 2017. Three months later, an application by SRFA to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) for special leave to appeal against the Western Cape High Court ruling was dismissed. Another two years would pass before the
City’s Portfolio Committee for Transport unanimously approved two proposed transport routes – a direct bus route operating along Wetton Road, and a trunk route with dedicated right-of-way bus lanes along Ottery and South roads. Council rubber-stamped these plans in March last year. When People’s Post spoke to the City’s Mayco member for transport, Felicity Purchase, in November last year (“Roll-out one step closer”, 12 November 2019), she said a series of public meetings would commence in this year with affected communities, affected bus and minibus-taxi operators, businesses, residents’ associations and people who live in the area around the routes. If all went to plan, Purchase said, the MyCiti buses would operate in Wynberg by 2027. V Continued on page 3.