Letter to the Editor: It's time to connect the cliff path - for the good of them all

Letter to the Editor: It’s‌ ‌time‌ ‌to‌ ‌connect‌ ‌the‌ ‌cliff‌ ‌path‌ ‌ –‌ ‌for‌ ‌the‌ ‌good‌ ‌of‌ ‌all‌ ‌

M T Wessels Eastcliff

The full-page advertisement under the heading Save Our Shores (The Village NEWS, 10 February edition) refers. As a daily cliff path user and regular visitor to the difficult-to-access Poole’s Bay area, I was taken aback by the blatant misinformation published – complete with random pictures off the internet, none taken at this location.

This amateurish, skewed presentation was a transparent, emotional appeal to nature lovers like me. Addressing each egregious point listed will take up too much space, but the main red herrings posed need urgent refutation – even if the window for public comment on extending (completing!) the cliff path via Poole’s Bay closed on 18 February.

The first is the barefaced statement that the property owners along this stretch of coast are accepting of visitors below the high tide mark – as if the choice of access was ever theirs. The irony is evidently lost on them when they, not a few lines further down, lambaste the Cliff Path Action Group (CPAG) for clearing the narrow, overgrown and boulder-strewn footpath that leads down to Poole’s Bay. Worse, upon a recent visit all the handy blue direction markers placed by CPAG had been removed (illegally as it turns out, as it forms part of a public process) and replaced by these misleading SOS signboards.

The adjacent property owners have the fullest right to protect their properties against trespassers, as is the case for every one of the many other properties along the cliff path all the way from Westcliff to Voëlklip. But none of those property owners claim the right to private seafront access, and neither does SA law allow it. Yet, elsewhere in the advert they readily acknowledge that agile members of the public already access Poole’s Bay,

legally. So one has to wonder who exactly they’re so desperately afraid of? Thieving families with small children? Criminal pensioners? Marauding bird watchers?

To be clear: Completing the pedestrian pathway will allow fast and easy access by security services, whether it be HPP patrol guards, the SAPS or Nature Conservation reacting to vagrants or criminals or poachers taking advantage of this poorly accessible area. As a ratepayer I will be much more comfortable with public oversight to protect this piece of coastline than trusting the vested say-so of the adjacent property owners that all is in order – especially when a number of these are only occupied during holidays.

Then there is the myth that this piece of coastline, apparently preserved under the careful watch of the private property owners, is in pristine condition. Any regular user will attest that the opposite is true, especially when compared to any part of the adjacent Fernkloof coastal reserve. This 850m stretch of shoreline contains a large number of broken and degraded concrete and ceramic pipes (sewer and stormwater), complete with rusting steel inserts. Furthermore, it is heavily littered with rubbish, including a large amount of marine-life-threatening plastic material that washes ashore or arrives in the stormwater run-off. Moreover, there is an inordinate amount of building rubble (bricks, concrete, ceramic and glass) in the pebble beds, not seen anywhere else along the 16km of cliff path.

Click on the newspaper below to read more (see page 7).