A group of residents from Leonardo Village, Bothasig, recently cleaned up a vacant piece of land where vagrants apparently camp out and dump their rubbish. The land is located behind the Bothasig Hall on the corner of Bosmansdam Road (M8) and the N7.
Dirk Smit, a resident, says the problem has been going on for quite a while, but it is getting increasingly out of control. A group of residents visited the area and cleaned up the site on Monday 10 April (Easter weekend).
Clean-up done before, now intensified
“The clean-up was not the first that the community did as we entered the area a while ago to thin out the alien vegetation to try and improve the visibility to the number of spots they were staying in and doing their recycling.
“Then we did it again and went closer to their spots to lay them more bare and then on Monday we went at it quite heavily and did a more intense clean-up, but there is still more to do as we only went for the obvious big stuff and needles,” Smit says.
He says electrical cables and telephone cables have also been vandalised by some of the vagrants.
Smit says calls have been made to the City of Cape Town and law enforcement. “Law enforcement arrived and issued fines for dumping and gave them 48 hours warning to vacate the site,” says Smit.
Residents say the property belongs to the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral), however Melany Kühn, Sanral spokesperson, says this is not the case. She says Sanral only owns the land along the N7 north of Melkbosstrand.
Kühn said the land in question belongs to the provincial department of transport and public works. TygerBurger is still waiting on comment from the department.
Councillor aware of the issue
Miquette Temlett, Ward 5 councillor, said she is aware of the open space and the vagrants. She confirmed that the property does not belong to the City of Cape Town.
“We have lots of problems there and it is a continuous problem. The City does not have a mandate to clean there, whether it is illegal dumping or people sleeping there,” she says.
Temlett says the area is also a hijacking hot-spot.
She says the City has to contact the property owner and that the property owner will have to clean it up.
“The City of Cape Town, law enforcement and the Displaced People’s Unit (DPU) have done operations there and do operations there frequently because of the fact that it is a hot-spot for people sleeping there as well as for illegal dumping. The City’s Urban Waste Management also visit the site.
“But as you know the law states that law enforcement cannot remove people, they have to ask them if they are willing to go to a safe space and if they are not, law enforcement cannot forcibly remove them from the space.
“Sometimes the people go to the safe space and the area is cleaned up, sometimes they come back. So it remains a problem, sometimes people only sleep there for a night, and leave their rubbish there.”
Temlett says she is aware of the clean-up over the Easter weekend.
