Cape Town - The City of Cape Town’s mayoral committee for spatial planning and environment has announced that work on St James Beach is finally set to start.
Spatial planning and environment Mayco member Eddie Andrews announced the news on Wednesday, detailing that the iconic beach’s derelict bathing boxes and walkways will be among the areas that receive upgrades.
Andrews said if all goes well, the City estimates that the project will be complete by the end of November, just before the start of the December holiday period.
“St James Beach is one of the iconic beach destinations along the False Bay coastline, with visitors flocking to this tourist area over weekends and public holidays. The iconic bathing boxes are synonymous with this beach, and an important element of the town’s heritage and sense of place,” he said.
“Given the derelict state of the existing bathing boxes, we have decided to replace these with new bathing boxes.”
The City’s plans to upgrade the beach will include work on the St James’ bathing huts. The City says it intends to remove the derelict bathing boxes and replace them with nine new boxes in the first phase, and two or three more in the next financial year.
Andrews said the City also intends to widen the St James walkway by 0.5m between the first set of steps, and the second set of steps close to the ablutions.
Once done, it will be 1.9m wide to accommodate more pedestrians, or to be used for seating.
The section of the walkway between the ablutions and the seaward point will be also widened – to 2.8m – to make the area accessible by wheelchair and prams.
The project will also see the addition of a seating wall and a sitting step along the seaward edge to provide a stepped seating area with great views of the beach, tidal pool and Simon’s Town.
“The area between the ablutions and seaward point will not have bathing boxes anymore, which will improve the view towards Simon’s Town and provide more space for recreational users.
“However, the picnic area will be upgraded by adding topsoil and new grass,” Andrews said.
The project will also seek to improve the entrance area through the surfacing of untidy sections, and the shower facilities at the beach will be improved by shifting them on to a new concrete slab off the beach.
St James councillor Aimee Kuhl said: “We are excited about these improvements that will benefit the community and visitors to this iconic beach. We have engaged the local ratepayers’ association and other residents who indicated their support for the project.
“This is a welcome and much-needed effort to maintain and improve the St James Beach to ensure it remains an attractive destination for locals and tourists,” Kuhl said.