The City of Cape Town has announced that the Camps Bay Drive roadworks will be completed at the end of November, two months later than the promised completion date, and announced more than two weeks after the work was meant to have been completed!
Instead of communicating with Camps Bay residents (and those from Hout Bay, being heavy users of the road) via municipal accounts, the City of Cape Town’s Mayoral Committee member for Transport Councillor Brett Herron utilized the Cape Argus to make the announcement! We reported the delay in completion of the roadworks on Camps Bay Drive two weeks ago already! The expected completion date falls into the Tourism High Season, a major nightmare for tourists and residents alike!
An indirect notice from the City of Cape Town’s Ian Bowker indicated that residents could make use of the first section of Camps Bay Drive from the city side, but when we tried it out it was a Stop/Go section, no section of the road yet being open to two lanes of traffic, as had been indicated in the City of Cape Town communication sent to Camps Bay Watch, and passed on to residents! In this drive we did experience the smoother curve constructed on Camps Bay Drive, and the very welcome viewing stop created on the seaside of the road, which was not available previously when tourists ran across the road to take photographs!
Herron motivated the Camps Bay Drive roadworks on the 14ooo vehicles using the road daily, it being an important link between city centre and Hout Bay too. No renovations have been made to the road for 30 years. The smoothing of the curves of the road has been to accommodate the MyCiTi Buses using the route. Herron said that a number of ‘unexpected challenges‘ have delayed the project by at least nine weeks, stating that they have been beyond the ‘city’s control‘ but he does not elaborate what the challenges have been, other than a general requirement to ‘excavate deeper than was originally planned‘, sounding like poor prior planning by engineers!
Herron does not apologize to the residents of Hout Bay and Camps Bay, nor does he mention the impact of the roadworks on the Tourism jewel which Camps Bay is for Cape Town!
Source: Cape Argus
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Tel (021) 433-2100 Twitter:@WhaleCottage Facebook: click here
It’s a total shambles & we arrive in Camps Bay in the 3rd week of November, a trip previously planned in order to arrive AFTER the promised completion of the roadworks.
I wonder if anyone will get fired……………………….silly me, what a stupid idea!!
Dream on…..!
It is so frustrating, and season hasn’t really got going yet!
An article punctuated entirely with exclamation marks! Amazing!