Residents and businesses in Summerstrand and Humewood will never again have to take money from their own pockets to cut the grass and clean along the beachfront.
These were the words of Economic Development, Tourism and Agriculture (EDTA) executive director, Anele Qaba, during the announcement of a post-COVID tourism recovery plan for Nelson Mandela Bay, with Tourism Month having started at the beginning of September.
Qaba was referring to the recent selfless act of multiple business in the Bay, including Barney’s Tavern, KFC, Angelo’s Café, Blue Waters Café, Wimpy and several guesthouses, which donated approximately R5 000 towards a clean-up project.
This follows the lapsing of the municipality’s grass-cutting contract earlier this year, leaving the beachfront and its facilities in a state of utter disrepair.
Owing to vandalism, copper pipes were also stolen from the toilets and showers at King’s Beach; waste and rubble were strewn across the toilet floors; urinals were damaged and there were even visible signs of a fire made inside the basin and on the floor of the male ablution blocks.
Property consultant at Harcourts Beachfront, Kareen Imrie, said that the clean-up had been going well for the few days that the project had taken place.
“We started to clean up the area in front of Barney’s and the pier all the way to The Six Pillars,” Imrie said. “We cut the grass the previous week and it just looked so much better.
“We were just blown away by how many people were willing to give donations and help us clean up the beachfront.”
Resident and business owner, Clifford Hanks, who donated R500 towards the project, was responsible for getting donations from guesthouses in the vicinity.
Hanks recently said that the state of the beachfront was ridiculous and that it needed to be fixed as soon as possible.
He mentioned that the owner of Lazy Cutters garden service, Ian Bezuidenhout, who gave his machines to the residents to use free, had been invaluable during this time.
According to Qaba, he recently visited the King’s Beach area and saw that the grass was long, but when he heard a few days later what the residents had done, he asked the municipality’s public health directorate to address the problem at the Beachfront.
He also mentioned that he had signed a resolution the previous day, which meant that contractors were to be on site immediately to start cutting grass across the whole metro.
“These residents and businesses decided to put money together and started cutting the grass. That’s important and we really applaud them, but it is a bit of an embarrassment for us as a metro. I just want to say that it is much appreciated but as of now, I promise that they will never use a cent from their pockets again, because contractors should be on site so that has been sorted,” Qaba said.
“Looking at our King’s Beach area, it was a little bit of a disgrace, because it’s an area where we have a Blue Flag status. If that particular area and its facilities are dilapidated and not maintained or secured, we would lose our Blue Flag status and one of the key products that will assist us in attracting visitors to the metro.”
Qaba said that in order to save tourism in the Bay, drastic measures needed to be taken to ensure that the metro was clean, dilapidated buildings were taken care of and vandalism was curbed.
“These are the basic things that we need to do. For any tourism destination to prosper, we need to ensure the safety of our visitors and will therefore be looking at a security contract for the beachfront.
“In Ward 2, it is critical to secure, fix and maintain before we can even think of building new tourism products,” he added.
Ward 2 Councillor, Renaldo Gouws, said the next day that he had seen cleaners in the area tidying up the beachfront.
“I have also seen officials coming to look at the various issues in order to escalate them, so there is definitely movement in the right direction.
“There has been a significant difference since the recent site meeting,” he said.
