Edwina Hadfield, Gordon’s Bay
For the past few years the Gordon’s Bay Residents’ Association (GBRA) has been working hard at establishing a Special Rating Area (SRA), but after meetings, planning, obtaining quotes and putting together a business plan that would suit the needs of Gordon’s Bay and ensuring that we, for the chosen area of the SRA did not add additional rates to the residents rates account of over R100 plus VAT, the City of Cape Town shot us down in flames, and would have preferred a more “Rolls Royce” budget, which we knew would not be acceptable to our residents and ourselves as ratepayers, so the idea of doing it ourselves was borne.
By implementing and running our own Gordon’s Bay campaign, we would not be attracting any additional costs such as VAT or admin fees, salaries or any costs, it is a voluntary organisation and all monies received will go towards the campaign for visible patrolling and cameras.
“Reclaim our town” is the main theme, and to do this we launched the Visible Patrolling and Camera Campaign, in October, at the Lof Sentrum in Gordon’s Bay with Alderman JP Smith as the main speaker.
The residents were taken through a presentation of what had been done by the GBRA, with the way forward with the sudden increase in crime, the state of vagrancy, prostitution and drug dealing, which is growing daily, and although we have an active SAPS, law enforcement and Metro police, they are all short-staffed and do not have the manpower to deal with the present state, together with the fact that crime is not being reported.
In October and November, we campaigned with the residents and business/property owners to contribute towards this project.
Since Gordon’s Bay Security was the preferred supplier for security in, a plan was put together for them to implement a visible patrol vehicle that is dedicated to the project, and will patrol the public open spaces.
A camera system will also be implemented shortly that will be connected to the COCT, and also be monitored at our own joint operations centre.
We need the support of all the residents, to keep the car on the road, and to purchase the cameras, and we can then start with the next phase, which will be the cleaning and greening of Gordon’s Bay.
For information, email gbra@icon.co.za or call 082 384 9699.
