Businessman sparks off Gonubie Beach clean-up
CONCERNED residents from Gonubie have taken it upon themselves to clean up their former Blue Flag beach which has been in a state of neglect over the past months.
Resident, Marius Bezuidenhout, who owns a garden service company, initiated the Gonubie cleanup last week. On Friday he and five of his employees took to the beach area, cut the grass and removed sand from the parking lot.
Bezuidenhout said he was assisted by other concerned residents who donated outdoor cleaning equipment. “I wrote on Facebook that I was thinking of doing this initiative. A lot of people said they wished me luck but said unfortunately they could not join me.
“Businessman Martin Harmse was kind enough to give us his frontend loader. We started at 9am and we were there the whole day,” Bezuidenhout said adding that Gonubie residents were sick and tired of waiting for help “that was not coming from BCM”.
“We ask and ask and ask but nothing happens and no one is doing anything. At the end of the day we live in Gonubie and if BCM is not interested in serving us, we might as well do things ourselves.
“That is our community and we love it.
“As we were standing there after all the sand removal another businessman stopped his car and asked what we were doing and helped us when I told him we actually needed a TLB [tractor-loader-backhoe] to load back the sand to the ocean,” said Bezuidenhout ,adding that the TLB finished off-loading the sand after 8pm.
BCM spokesman Sibusiso Cindi said council officials were not aware of the clean-up initiative.
“The removal of the sand requires authorisation from the department of environmental affairs before any sand is removed,” Cindi said. —