Repair work along the Mitchells Plain railway is underway with one track expected to be back up and running as early as July.
While there had been no illegal occupiers along the Mitchells Plain route, the lack of services over the past six years has left the stations in a state of severe disrepair owing to extensive vandalism.
At a community engagement on Friday 10 May at Lentegeur Police Station, Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa officials shied away from revealing the exact cost of restoring services to Mitchells Plain, but said five repair aspects stood in the way of restoring services, including tracks, overhead cabling, signalling and replacing substations.
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It is expected to have one operational line to Kapteinsklip Station by July, after restoring service between Nyanga and Philippi at the end of May.
Kagiso Moleme, Senior manager for stakeholder and parliamentary management at Prasa, says encroachment on the Philippi portion of the central line was the worst, with extensive negotiations between officials and the community seeing the relocation of more than 800 illegal occupiers from the railway line to another plot of Prasa land in Ward 88 of Philippi, near Stock Road.
This relocation is temporary, as the plot is not zoned for human settlements.
No plot for relocations
Moleme says an application has been made to the City of Cape Town for this to happen, however it will only be for a period of two years. This relocation was made in the absence of a large enough plot of land to accommodate the thousands of illegal occupiers.
Last year, Prasa made an official application for a plot of land in the Ward 43 Philippi Wedge to be rezoned as a potential site for this relocation.
Ward 43 councillor Elton Jansen confirms this application process is still underway.
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“The case officer who was dealing with the applications retired at short notice. Thus, the case was re-allocated to another planner. He has drafted the first versions of the two reports, which the section head: land use management is checking. Once completed and signed, the report will be given to Legal Services to have an overview of the report before submitting it to the Municipal Planning Tribunal.”
Jansen has voted against the relocation to the Philippi wedge.
