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Checkers Centre, Plumstead TUESDAY 15 September 2020 | Tel: 021 910 6500 | Email: post@peoplespost.co.za | Website: www.peoplespost.co.za
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People’s Post
Dilapidated Muizenberg beach huts are set for refurbishment, thanks to two campaigns aimed at restoring them. PHOTO: ANGELA GORMAN/FACEBOOK
MUIZENBERG
Huts to get makeover RACINE EDWARDES RACINE.EDWARDES@MEDIA24.COM @RAEEDWARDES
M
uizenberg’s tourism activists want to see you in the buff – well, rather purchasing and wearing a buff mask – to help save the iconic Muizenberg beach huts. The #SaveOurBeachHuts campaign and the #MyMuizenbergBuff campaign, which was devised to support the former, are looking to garner support in order to refurbish, rejuvenate or even repurpose the colourful beach huts. The future of the beach huts has been a topic of discussion since 2017 when the plan to possibly reduce them was first aired. But the community spoke out against this idea. The huts have been around for decades and were initially meant to allow women to change into their bathing costumes on arrival at the beach. This year, beach-lover Angela Gorman started a campaign which seeks to breathe new life into 25 of the 31 huts that are often seen on postcards, cellphone and computer
wallpapers, and in photoshoots. In a livestream on Facebook on Saturday 12 September, Gorman explained: “We started with a walk on the beach after lockdown (alert level three) and saw the dilapidated state of the beach huts and decided we had to do something.” She added that they opted to use Facebook to get people’s attention. “We started a post on Facebook saying, ‘would anyone be interested in helping?’ and we got phenomenal support.” The intention is to get the public to sponsor wood, paint, time and any other resources that would be required to restore the huts to their original grandeur. The post on Facebook rallied enough support to refurbish five huts with the help of builders and siblings Hannes and Albert Tredoux. According to Daniel Blaauw, an entrepreneur and the owner of The Muize Bed and Breakfast, the local tourism industry needs a boost in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the #SaveOurBeachHuts campaign is one of many great ways to achieve this. Before Covid-19, he says: “We had TV shoots, commercials being shot there, there
were film crews on the beach all the time (filming the huts). But they are in a poor state and they’re unsafe now – they really are used. And Muizenberg gets inundated with people on holidays; people congregating around them for shade, for photos – so the thought of losing them is inconceivable.” In addition to the huts’ deteriorating state, it has also become common to see the privacy afforded by the boxes being misused. They have become a place for drug usage and other antisocial behaviour. Allowing the community to take ownership of the refurbishment is intended to curb that occurrence. Blaauw’s MUi Community Shop, on his Whale Watchers Properties accommodation website, retails products with a community benefit. Having had his own discussions with the City about refurbishing the huts years before, he decided to support Gorman’s initiative to save the beach huts with the #MyMuizenbergBuff campaign, available on the MUi Community Shop webpage. The designs of the buff masks incorporate the colours of the huts – blue, green, red and yellow – and are being sold at various stores
locally with 20% of the proceeds going towards the refurbishment of the huts. “When you buy and trade here, you’re very much inundated with surf culture – which is fantastic – but the beach boxes have their own history. So the buffs are a way of celebrating that multi-cultural beach lifestyle,” says Blaauw. The huts are not protected heritage sites and are, therefore, suitable for rebuilding and reuse. Gorman says she is waiting for the City of Cape Town to provide her with the specifications of the boxes to get started on the few that have been funded so far. She hopes that getting started will activate more of the community to contribute. Blaauw adds that one day the collaborators may look into repurposing the huts as retail space or commissioning them as lockers for beach-goers. But for now, support is needed to beautify them once again. “Around the world, the beach box is a symbol of the family beach holiday – so we can’t get rid of them,” Blaauw says. V Visit Save Our Beach Huts on Facebook, email saveourbeachuts@gmail.com, or visit whalewatchers.co.za to find out more.
POLES
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