Urban areas no place for livestock

HISTORY has proven over centuries that urban development cannot accommodate agricultural pursuits and particularly livestock farming.

The motor car, road development, industry and modern healthcare emphasise this fact.

Our urban authorities have for political and traditional reasons been ignoring this growing problem, sometimes with fatal consequences.

Urban limits and roads are fenced off for obvious reasons at huge cost to ratepayers. Connected cattle owners appropriate the “common areas” to themselves, remove the fences and then herd their cattle to these free grazing areas.

Let’s get one thing clear: the cattle in our towns are not strays. The immediate response to the latest cattle incident proves this beyond doubt.

I, and many other residents, witness daily how herdsmen direct the cattle to available grazing, as you would expect any good farmer to do.

Legal experts, please come to your fellow citizens’ assistance!

What are our bylaws and why are they not being applied?

How can the verges of highways, residential and city sidewalks, open unbuilt-up municipal areas, parks, school grounds and residential gardens be regarded as “common areas” to be used at whim, and who are the authorities who made these arbitrary allocations?

Surely there are bylaws specifically applicable to “common areas”?

If anyone wants to be a farmer, they can do so in an agricultural area. I cannot afford a farm, but I don’t keep cattle in my backyard.

The laws are there for a reason. They protect ALL the residents of a city. Name withheld, Uitenhage