Africa-Press – South-Africa. The mayor of Cape Town, Geordin Hill-Lewis, said the City was pulling out all the stops to ensure its beaches were safe for the public and visitors.
Hill-Lewis visited Strand Beach on Friday to inspect the initiatives the City put in place to ensure visitors were able to safely enjoy Cape Town’s beaches.
The visit follows the impact of sustained load shedding on sewer pump stations and related infrastructure, which saw the closure of several beaches due to sewage spills in recent weeks.
As of today, all of Cape Town’s beaches are open and available for all to enjoy, except for a section at Gordon’s Bay, which is due to reopen soon.
The mayor hailed multi-agency efforts, rolled out at 29 beaches, tidal pools and the coastline stretches this festive season, with the support of over 4 000 uniformed staff.
“Law Enforcement, life-guarding and the Identikidz programme have all contributed to a successful festive season on Cape Town beaches and at community public pools,” he said.
Hill-Lewis said that, in Strand alone, officials estimate that hundreds of thousands of people visited the beach, bringing with it massive economic benefits for businesses and traders around.
“It is good to see Strand Beach looking lively today after a section was temporarily closed due to an electrical fault at a sewer pump station. Sustained load shedding continues to impact City infrastructure, as does the discharge of foreign items into the sewer system,” he said.
“Where these incidents occur, we put safety first by effecting temporary precautionary closures until water quality results show it is safe for recreational use.”
The City’s priority programme to clean up waterways and public places will see at least R8 billion investment in water and sanitation infrastructure over the next three years, including more generators and measures to build resilience against the impact of load shedding.
“It is vitally important that we sustain momentum to end load shedding over time in Cape Town. Even generators are not a fail-safe mechanism to protect our basic service infrastructure, as these can also fail in sustained higher load shedding phases,” he said.
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