kougademocrat

It is common knowledge that two contractors were stopped by DEDEA (Environmental Affairs) doing repairs on rock revetments on the St Francis Bay beach. They were stopped due to not having proper authority.

After discussions on 10 March 2015 amongst Councillors Ben Rheeder, Chimpie Cawood and the Kouga Municipal Manager, Mr Fadi and Mr E Oosthuizen, Kouga Municipality confirmed their commitment to address the spit/dune & beach problem to their best ability, but that further discussions amongst Kouga Municipality, the Ward 12 Councillor and DEDEA must be done to determine the way forward.

This meeting took place the next day on 11 March 2015 and during discussions between us and DEDEA we were advised as follows:

To prevent DEDEA from cancelling the existing ROD, which allows us to do repairs to the rock revetments on the St Francis beach, Kouga Municipality was requested to send a special motivation to DEDEA under which property owners in St Francis Bay will be allowed to do repairs to the rock revetments.

The ROD was issued in the Name of Kouga Municipality who is liable to ensure the conditions contained in the ROD are adhered to. The contractors performed work without the knowledge or consent from Kouga Municipality and in the process contravened conditions contained in the ROD which led to the DEDEA stopping all work and the possible issuing of non-compliance notices.

The municipality will notify home owners when they may apply for authorisation.

The use of geo-textile bags to strengthen the spit/dune cannot proceed until a proper EIA is done.

That Kouga Municipality must appoint a consultant to determine the necessary actions as proposed in the Worley Parsons’ report by Dr Mocke. An EIA must then be done to implement the proposed actions.

Kouga Municipality consented to compile the motivation to DEDEA for rock revetment repairs, to proceed with the two EIA’s for the use of geo textile bags and actions as proposed by Worley Parsons respectively and to appoint a consultant as proposed by DEDEA.

Note : Any un-authorised actions will jeopardize further negotiations to acquire permission to do repairs to our beach.

Compiled by Cllr Ben Rheeder
Ward 12 ward councillor, Kouga Council
St Francis Bay

Tags: st francis spit dune

This entry was posted on March 13, 2015 at 4:29 pm and is filed under St Francis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.