Cry the beloved St George’s Park
Renowned Bay tourist attraction going to ruin as vandalism escalates
Once renowned as a recreational site for families and friends, St George’s Park has disintegrated into a shadow of its former self.
So desperate is the situation at the park which was founded in 1860 and spreads over 73ha of wooded parkland
that vagrants are opting to sleep among the dead, while many of the facilities have been vandalised.
Flourishing with indigenous plants and historical facilities, Gqeberha’s oldest park, incorporating the world-famous Port Elizabeth Cricket Club, was a mainstay tourist attraction for the city during its heyday.
Today, the same indigenous trees are used by vagrants to climb over the newly built 8m high spiked clear-view fence to access the eerie homes they have built on top of graves dating back to 1865.
During a walkabout yesterday, The Herald saw vagrants erect their makeshift structures on fenced-off tombstones, using cardboard, blankets, plastic bags and other waste products.
The rudimentary shelters are filled with human waste, condoms, trolleys, used needles, alcohol bottles, torn clothes and water bottles.
Yesterday, there were about six structures on the site and locals said the authorities had given up trying to demolish them.
The caretakers at the bowling club property adjacent to the park, Peter Visagie, 50, and Pastor Barry, 68, said some vagrants had lived there for more than a decade, despite constant attempts to evict them.
Visagie said after last year’s Covid-19 hard lockdown, the number of vagrants in the park had increased dramatically.
“People were desperate, that’s all. This place was intact before lockdown.
“There were vagrants sleeping there but now you find more and more people,” he said.
“There’s just too many homeless people and who do you blame?
“That is why you find all these facilities being stripped
because of people’s desperation, and Covid made it worse.”
With most of the facilities now vandalised, the only thing seemingly still intact is the park’s flora.
Various facilities are used as shelter by vagrants with many finding comfort at the stands and in offices, changing rooms, toilets and storerooms.
Barry said: “I think the municipality failed the homeless drastically and this could have been prevented had the soup kitchens been left open.
“A lot of soup kitchens were closed and then people became hungry.
“They then stripped the swimming pool in just a few months, trying to find anything they can sell,” he said.
“We lacked social responsibility towards each other and the issue of homelessness here in Nelson Mandela Bay is far worse than other places I’ve been to.”
Public health mayoral committee member Lance Grootboom said vagrants did not want to live in the metro’s placement shelters because many were allegedly involved in criminal activities.
“These guys are busy with criminal elements that is why it is best for them to stay there.
“The last time we removed them they came back,” he said.
In the 2021/2022 draft budget report, the municipality highlighted the importance of maintaining and preserving historic infrastructure in Nelson Mandela Bay.
About R3m is set to be allocated by the metro to secure the St George’s Park pool and the precinct where sports and arts department facilities are located.
“We have no plans to upgrade the cemetery, we haven’t put money aside because the cemetery is full,” Grootboom said.
“The challenge we had was the insourcing of security — it created a huge problem with the supervision of [guards] — but we are working on a plan to make sure that we get eyes on our municipal buildings,” he said.
Grootboom said officials expected that another attempt to remove vagrants would be carried out by municipal law enforcement agencies in conjunction the COO’s office and the human settlements department.