Letter to the Editor | Use De Mond site for development of university

Writer: Barry Coombe, Hermanus.

I spend a fair amount of time walking in the mountains above Hermanus and surrounds and am always awestruck by the vistas that appear from every vantage point that one reaches at any given time on the ridges and peaks around this beautiful part of the world.

It was a majestic morning on Mosselberg that inspired me to write this letter. As I sat up there and pondered the world below, my eyes fell on the piece of open land that was once the De Mond caravan park.

I thought about its position at the mouth of the Klein River estuary and the memories I had of going there straight after matric back in 1981, when it was just an ordinary, very simple and beautiful camping and caravan site under milkwoods and next to the serene estuary.

This piece of land which, if I am not mistaken, belongs to the Overstrand Municipality, has recently been earmarked for another development, set to tick many legislative and environmental boxes but with the sole outcome of benefiting a few people financially and materially.

As I pondered this seemingly inevitable outcome, another idea came to me which inspired me to write this letter. What if this site could somehow become the site of an internationally acclaimed ecological, environmental and technologically-centred University, drawing all kinds of national and international students and researchers, experts in their fields from all over the world?

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