Yesterday was the last day of the Festive Season holiday period, with schools in our province having re-opened today, and most employees having back at work since Monday if not the week before. I took stock of what Camps Bay was like in the past four weeks, from a resident’s perspective, in writing an email to our Councillor Nicola Jowell in which I highlighted how out of control, and poorly serviced by the City of Cape Town departments, Camps Bay was.

As background to the reader: I moved back to Camps Bay 18 months ago, and have been an active walker, setting myself a daily goal of a minimum of 10000 steps, achieved mostly by walking along the Promenade twice a day, in the late morning and in the late afternoon. A year ago I saw the state that Camps Bay was in, it being 2 January, the day after the busiest day of the year in Camps Bay. I was shocked, ranted and raved on Facebook, having photographed the stream near the Tidal Pool, until I realised that none of this would clean the stream, so I returned with a garbage bag and cleaned up the stream. From that day onwards I clean up the Camps Bay Promenade on my walks, putting litter into the numerous bins nearby. I have recently created Camps Bay Clean, an initiative to   employ homeless persons in cleaning up the litter lying loose on the pavements, lawns, and walkways of the Camps Bay Promenade. Generously this initiative is funded by the residents and some businesses of Camps Bay, Marion Taylor Properties being our most generous sponsor to date. Residents contribute cash as well as garbage bags. 

Being the person that I am, and having walked this walk over the past 18 months, I observe many things happening (and not happening) on the Promenade, and photograph them. I met our Councillor Nicola Jowell at a Camps Bay Ratepayers and Residents Association meeting four months ago, and took it upon myself to report untoward activities and maintenance related issues to her. These include us finding Homeless structures where we clean, vendors pushing their wares onto tourists possibly without a permit, Council Bins overflowing, cyclists riding on pavements and not wearing helmets, motorists driving through pedestrian crossings or parking over them, being harassed by hostile homeless persons, and seeing the ineffectiveness of especially the Solid Waste, Law Enforcement, as well as Traffic Enforcement departments. 

 

This is the email mail which I sent to Councillor Jowell yesterday, with her first response soon after I posted it on the Camps Bay Community Facebook Page: 

‘Dear Nicola

Phew, Camps Bay is back in control again, after a hectic almost four-week out-of-control period.

As I did not report to you daily since you went on leave during this period, I want to catch up with you and want to express my extreme disappointment with the City of Cape Town’s service to Camps Bay during this period.

1. Given my interest in the cleaning of Camps Bay in particular, the Solid Waste Department let us down very badly:

#. On public holidays and good weather days (15 and 16 December, 26 and 31 December, and 1 – 12 January) the green bins were not cleared out daily, let alone twice a day, leading to huge litter left all over the lawns and pavements on the Camps Bay Promenade, and bins overflowing, most of the litter blowing into the ocean due to gale force South Easter winds blowing in the afternoon and evenings.

#. There was no sign of any Council staff picking up litter on the lawns and pavements from 5h00 on the following days, leading to litter blowing into the ocean at night, as stated above.

#. Camps Bay consists of Bali Bay and Bakoven too, but Bali Bay and Bakoven bins, which are regularly overflowing, receive very irregular attention from Council, the staff telling me that they only work up to the police station.

#. The Council Identikidz initiative caused a huge litter problem, the tags being torn off and lying all over the lawns and pavements in Camps Bay.

#. The bin at the pavement at the Tidal Pool has still not been affixed to the fence.

#. The 11 portable loos were stocked with loo paper, which ended up lying all over the lawns and pavements, blown by the strong South Easter. Huge amounts of litter were trapped behind the loos standing near the Lifesaving building.

#. Due to the lack of action by Law Enforcement in removing two Homeless structures, shown to them and to you in October, we have a dreadful litter problem near Bali Bay Beach. This past Sunday I saw homeless structures removed near Camps Bay High School and at Bantry Bay rocks, but our structures at the beach have not been attended to! We know that there are more homeless persons sleeping in the bushes and between rocks in Camps Bay. The homeless persons sleeping at the Pump Station are a huge source of litter too.

#. Maidens Cove is a topic all on its own. I do not understand why a part of the parking fee can not be used to finance a full-time Council employee to clean up there daily. It is beyond the scope of our Camps Bay Clean to clean up this vast and filthy picnic area.

Our biggest cleaning job is around the Tidal Pool, education being required for picnickers to take their litter home or to put it in a bin. I would love to see a graffiti message painted on the very ugly toilet/changing building at the Tidal Pool, as you posted for Sea Point on Facebook yesterday. How could I get such a project going for Camps Bay?

Ultimately I do not understand that a popular beach area and a tourism jewel like Camps Bay does not have a City Council cleanup team other than the bin emptiers, and that it is left up to us residents to clean up after all the visitors to our suburb, despite us paying such high rates and taxes.

2. Law Enforcement is completely useless in Camps Bay! Over the Festive Season we barely saw them walking on the Promenade to deal with issues. When I reported bicycle riding on the pavement to them, they said that they did not know if it is against a by-law. From the thousands of beer and spirits bottles we have picked up in this period, it is clear that there is no alcohol control on our beaches by Law Enforcement. They are reactive, never in their office (what a wasted space), and if they are seen walking, there are 3 writing out a ticket at one car, or standing in bundles of ten!

#. There is no control by Law Enforcement as to which vendors have permits to operate on the Promenade. The poor tourists are harassed by beggars, some as young as 3 years, lounger chair and umbrella vendors, ‘art’ and hat/sunglasses vendors, timeshare sellers, forex marketers, and ‘car guards’.

#. Some very unappetizing food preparation happened regularly on the Sportfield side of the Promenade, clearly fly-by-nights in that none lasted there very long, and continuously seeing new ones popping up. This is not controlled.

3. Camps Bay has become a Wild West of billboards and advertising on its lawns, including for Coca Cola (I saw three of their stands on one day this past weekend, selling chips too, and these packets are strewn all over Camps Bay), Pepsi, Kalahari Biltong, Forex World, a peanut and butter seller, lounger vendors with two banners on one lawn, and sellers of elephant sculptures from a bakkie which they parked at the Promenade. . Some of these are still advertising their wares.

4. A homeless person who used to lie at the taxi rank and later moved to the nearby lawn burns charcoal regularly on the lawn at ‘his’ spot to blacken his skin.

5. All sorts of two-wheeled objects are crowding the pavements, making it very dangerous for pedestrians to walk. Up Cycles rental company tells its clients to ride on the pavement and that they don’t need helmets, charging them extra for helmet rental.

6. The traffic department graced us with its presence until yesterday, wanting to take action against matriculants who never arrived on the Matric results day. I saw up to eight Traffic Enforcement cars at the taxi rank on one day, all at the same space. They only took control of the traffic flow (or lack of) on 1 January. On every weekend day we residents cannot drive from one end to the other of our suburb due to the traffic blockage, happening due to the crazy three-way-stop at Camps Bay/Geneva Drive, Taxis and Ubers doing U-Turns, with no action by the traffic officials. When the traffic officials take up the taxi rank space with their cars, the minibus taxis park illegally and reverse into parking bays at the bottom of Camps Bay Drive, causing a major traffic blockage.

7. Increasingly visitors to our suburb lie or sit on the pavements, even bringing their chairs, blocking the pedestrian flow on the pavements.

I would be happy to meet with you and any Council officials who are supposed to look after Camps Bay, to provide further details and photographs.

I know that you do your best for Camps Bay, and I can see the difficulties you have in executing what must be fixed by the City of Cape Town, in how slowly their wheels turn.

Thank you on behalf of all of us in Camps Bay for always being open to our feedback.

Chris von Ulmenstein
0825511323’

Councillor Nicola commented below soon after I posted:

‘HI Chris. Thank you for this detailed feedback. I am furious that those 2 shelters we looked at have not been removed. I will get onto that. Let’s meet as soon as possible with Solid Waste on site to discuss all aspects of their work as a starting point. I will revert back to you directly with a possible time for this meeting. And then to tackle the issues that are reliant on law enforcement. I am hugely appreciative of the massive role that you have played over the festive season and many months before that too. I will respond to each issue on email. Thank you!’

 

Chris von Ulmenstein, WhaleTales Blog: www.chrisvonulmenstein.com/blog Tel +27 082 55 11 323 Twitter:@Ulmenstein Facebook: Chris von Ulmenstein Instagram: @Chrissy_Ulmenstein