Heritage site under threat
|Published
DESTRUCTION: Shopping centre has been looted.
Rocklands residents on Monday slammed the owners of the gutted Shoprite shopping centre in Mitchells Plain for allowing an adjacent national heritage site to go to the dogs.
The centre burnt down in mid-December and since then, skelms have been stripping it bare.
Residents say the problem is the diewe have now turned their attention to the adjacent Rocklands Civic Centre, where the paving has been stolen.
Due to the iconic United Democratic Front meeting held there in 1983 and the role it played in ending apartheid, the site housing the Rocklands Civic Centre, library and clinic was declared a national heritage site in November 2020.
During a public meeting on Monday, resident Gwendolene Pullen took the company, Small Enterprise Finance Agency (Sefa), to task for not doing enough: “We could see how our community’s landmark was broken down week after week and we reported it, but nothing was being done.
“The only security we have are the neighbourhood watch, who day and night patrol here. So this is why I am saying, ‘get our people involved’.”
Regional facilities manager Ghaulied van Schalkwyk said Sefa had tried to put measures in place such as barbed wire and extra security guards.
“This didn’t help, so now all we can do is follow procedure. The next step is to sign the agreement pertaining to the contractor. This will get sent to the City on Wednesday and then we will wait for their go ahead.”
He said all Sefa can hope for is for renovations to start as soon as possible so that the contractor can cordon off the site.
Sikhumbuzo Ndlovo, head of properties at Sefa, confirmed they will look at the redeployment of guards once the site has been closed off.