Ecological work around River Club underway
CRITICAL work is under way at the riverine areas and surrounds of the halted R4.6 billion River Club site before the winter rains.
Liesbeek Leisure Properties Trust (LLPT) trustee and spokesperson James Tannenberger said the work, which started yesterday, was necessary to mitigate potential environment and public health and safety risks impacting on the area ahead of the rainy season.
Work is being done in the Black River, Liesbeek River and Liesbeek Canal.
“The work that will begin today (Monday) will be undertaken strictly in compliance with the approved Environmental Management Programme (EMPr) in place for the rehabilitation and upgrade of the area as signed off by a freshwater ecologist, surface water hydrologist and the environmental control officer assigned to the project.”
The work will include removing the temporary platforms on both the western and eastern banks of the Black River and returning the river to its original channel shape and dimensions, and the excavation of a drainage channel in western arm of the Liesbeek at Link Road Crossing and Malta Crossing to facilitate through-drainage and prevent backing up of water into the stormwater culverts from Observatory during heavy rain to reduce the risk of flooding in those areas.
Work also includes the removal of gabion stone and completion of unfinished gabions in the canal / eastern arm of the Liesbeek River, and planting of rye grass to stabilise the excavated faces of the eastern arm of the Liesbeek
River to mitigate against erosion.
The development, which is to include Amazon as its primary tenant, has an interdict against it.
Earlier this month the Western Cape High Court dismissed an application for leave to appeal against the interdict.
“LLPT, as owner and developer of the project, is currently finalising an application for leave to appeal to be instituted shortly in the Supreme Court of Appeal against the whole of Judge (Patricia) Goliath’s judgment and order in the interdict. This follows Judge Goliath’s recent dismissal of the four applications for leave to appeal argued before her on April 14 by LLPT, the Western Cape Government, the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape First Nations Collective.”
The Liesbeek Action Campaign said yesterday that they would continue to fight for the preservation of the site.
“There is abundant evidence of indigenous connections to this piece of land going back centuries. It’s known to be of cultural and spiritual importance to past generations and continues to represent a place of deep significance to current generations of indigenous people.
“It’s known from European records and indigenous oral histories as a place for grazing cattle, and for social interaction, and was the site of the first attempted incursion by colonisers in 1510. In the Dutch colonial era, indigenous people were driven from this traditional grazing and watering place.”