Metro, don’t allow sand-mining
DRIVING down Victoria Drive into the stunning Schoenies, I again wondered at the beauty of our landscape.
That the Nelson Mandela Bay council would even contemplate agreeing to a sand-mining operation in the close proximity of this drive and the little hamlet goes beyond any rational consideration (“Assurances that historical building will not be affected by mining”, May 24).
Port Elizabeth has relatively little to offer tourists these days.
The drive next to the sea down Marine Drive and then back up to the city via Victoria Drive is one of a few tranquil scenic drives which many tourists (and residents of Port Elizabeth) enjoy.
I have lived here for many years and never tire of enjoying the countryside as I approach the sea.
Now this peaceful scenario is to be destroyed by an ugly, brutal, sand-digging catastrophe with enormous obnoxious trucks defiling our road and clouds of dust like a noxious miasma descending on Schoenies whenever a south-westerly wind blows!
What about the thousands of folk who cycle along this road and then there are the many young folk who use the road to university, having to contend with huge trucks on the narrow verges on a road that’s already beyond its sell-by-date? It is surely a recipe for disaster! Metro spokesperson Mthubanzi Mniki would do well to see for himself, any day of the week.
The dune behind the World War 2 lookout heritage site will be destroyed forever, changing the landscape to a flat barren scene.
If the heritage structure is left undisturbed, it will presumably be left standing on some sort of “pimple” for lack of a better word.
I would say it would be an unnatural scenario, destroying its scenic value for good.
In the newspaper reports consultant Clayton Weatherall-Thomas, of project consultants Algoa Consulting Mining Engineers, said, “The proposed mine will last five years, after which fynbos will be rehabilitated and any alien plants removed.”
Well now, how many more years will pass before this has been completed and in the interim we will all have to live with the raped, flattened area – an eyesore forever!
American writer Steve Berry said, “A concerted effort to preserve our heritage is a vital link to our cultural, educational, aesthetic, inspirational, and economic legacies – all of the things that quite literally make us who we are.”
Is our council going to trade our heritage, tourist attraction and one of the few remaining aesthetic Port Elizabethan areas for short-term gratification: money?
As Sophocles said, “For money, you would sell your soul!” Something I would not consider from a DA council!
One can only pray that sanity will prevail.
Talbot Cox, Schoenmakerskop, Port Elizabeth