Cover Note For Airport And Town Planning

Dear Members,

We attach the year end reports relating to the ongoing Airport saga and Town Planning – we use the word “planning” advisedly and reluctantly.

At the airport, we are in the final stages of the third tender process in as many years and remain hopeful that a decision will be made in March 2026. The losses incurred over the last few years already exceed R20m, and escalate daily with nobody being held accountable for the fruitless and wasteful expenditure incurred through incompetence.

There is little  evidence of  Bitou’s long term town planning taking adequate cognisance of limitations of the towns infrastructure and resources, particularly in regard to bulk water supply and sewerage capacity.     Although urban development has proceeded at pace for many years, not enough has been done to ensure infrastructure upgrades to the water supply and sewerage systems. Accordingly, we have exceeded the environment’s capacity to sustain what we already have, let alone the known increase in demand.

Drought cycles form an integral part of life and must be adequately planned for. The solutions are known to our water supply problems and yet millions have been spent on studies and assessments, without adequate follow up implementation.
Generally, the past year has seen some questionable decisions, such as the protracted process of  demolition on Erf 156 Signal Hill following the 2016 court order  and  the hugely controversial and unpopular proposed “sale” and development proposal for Erf 1725 on Longships, first mooted 18 years ago.

Kind regards,
Tony Blignaut

PDF documentTown Planning ReportDownload

PDF documentAirport ReportDownload