Rocklands community safety volunteers met with ward councillor Ashley Potts, metro police, the police and the Mitchells Plain Safety and Development Forum to map the area into safety nodes.

Safety nodes form part of the Mitchells Plain Safety and Development Forum’s broader strategy for safer communities. Forum secretary Oleander Oakes urged the groups at the meeting, on Thursday 14 May at Cedar High School Hall, not to operate outside the existing structure.

“We need to take hands. We can’t work separately,” she said.

Moving ahead

Oakes said the forum had planned to roll out the safe space part of the strategy at a later stage and encouraged the group to engage with the plan through their ward councillors.

The forum’s plan has been endorsed by the Western Cape Premier and the relevant Member of the Executive Council, and is backed by a R9 000 000 government allocation. Five zones have been earmarked as pilot areas, based on crime figures for 2024 and 2025: Montrose Park, Rocklands, Strandfontein, Tafelsig and Beacon Valley.

The plan is driven through Mitchells Plain’s sub-councils 12 and 17 and brings together all spheres of government, community structures, schools, businesses and non-profit organisations. Within each safe zone, a number of safe hubs will be set up focusing on areas such as education, employment, local businesses and trauma support.

Oakes confirmed she had been appointed as the forum’s representative for the Rocklands safe zone rollout and said the next meeting would include a full presentation of the plan.

Community-led solutions

Morne Press, a resident from the Portland area, shared how his community had already started working street by street to make their neighbourhood safer. Residents contribute R10 each to pay a local person to clean communal bins — creating income while keeping the area tidy.

He also described a community-funded closed-circuit television (CCTV) system that gives every contributing resident access to camera footage through a shared group. Councillor Potts backed up the approach, recounting how community cameras in Portland had helped track a stolen television to the thief’s home three to four years ago, leading to its recovery.

“Layer your safety so that it can be a safer community, not just for us but for the next generation,” Press said.

He also called for shot-spot technology — a gunshot detection system already used in some other areas — to be considered for Mitchells Plain.

Organised crime, not gang violence

Councillor Kurt Oliver attended not in his official capacity but as a Mitchells Plain resident who grew up in the area and said his heart was with the community.

He raised a sharp concern about how crime in the area was being classified, saying the label mattered when it came to government resources.

“It is not gang violence but organised crime,” he said. “If it’s gang violence they only give nine million. If it was organised crime they would have given 90 million.”

Oliver, a former police officer, said criminal groups in Mitchells Plain operated with salaries, payslips and intelligence systems, with some running operation centres complete with disguises and planning boards tracking criminal movements.

“We need to be two years ahead of what is happening, not two years behind,” he said.

He urged the group to push for the classification to be changed at government level so that more resources would follow.

“Let us try and change the word so that when it goes to government they can know, we know what we’re talking about.”

A community member present echoed the funding concern, saying R9 000 000 was far too little but that a successful pilot could open the door to far more.

“We need probably R90 million for this project,” he said. “Let’s make sure we have a project going, make a success of it so that the Premier and his team can make sure that we get 90 million.”

Pushing forward

Councillor Potts said the group was not working against the forum’s plan but working with it.

“We are not another structure parallel to the Mitchells Plain Development Forum. We are aligned to them,” he said.

He said the community mapping process had been under way since 2021 and was about ensuring Rocklands was ready when the forum’s task teams were formed. He was confident the area would lead the way.

“People support what they see. Nobody will support what’s not happening,” he said. “Rocklands is going to be the best safe zone that Mitchells Plain has.”

He praised the Rocklands neighbourhood watch team for their commitment, saying their passion was exactly what the process needed to build on.

Neighbourhood watch members then divided into working groups according to their zones to fill in a detailed form covering street names, schools, non-profit organisations, community groups and disability services in their areas.

READ ALSO: R9 million safety plan tabled before Mitchells Plain councillors