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Camps Bay Bowling Club battle enters final round
Camps Bay parents will have to wait another month to find out whether the City of Cape Town will give the green light to an application to build classrooms on council land leased by the Camps Bay Bowling Club.
The Camps Bay Bowling Club.
New Education MEC Debbie Schafer started her first week in office by getting stuck into the row between the bowling club – which celebrates its centenary this year – and Camps Bay Preparatory School.
The school has been lobbying for four years to have the Western Cape Education Department take over the lease so it can expand its classrooms.
The bowling club’s lease expires in 2018, but the city’s mayoral committee resolved earlier this month that it would approve the termination of the lease if the land was used for educational purposes.
This decision, which was to have been referred to the full council yesterday for final decision, has met with vehement resistance from bowling club members.
Schafer said: ‘It is clearly a very contentious issue within the community of Camps Bay, and I would like the opportunity to consult urgently with all relevant role-players. I could not do so by today (Thursday). In the light of this, I asked that the council hold the application over until next month’s meeting.’
Schafer said she had already met the Concerned Parents’ Group, which supported the postponement decision.
‘We will be meeting other roleplayers, such as the Camps Bay Bowling Club, as soon as possible.’
During yesterday’s council meeting, deputy mayor Ian Neilson said the negotiations would make it possible to find a compromise.
Schafer’s spokeswoman, Bronagh Casey, said the MEC would consider all proposals. One of these could include the so-called share option, which would allow the club and the school to both use the land.
Suzanne Maier of the Concerned Parents’ Group said yesterday: ‘We met the MEC (on Wednesday) and we were in full support on what she proposed.’ She could not provide more details at this stage.
The parents’ group noted on its official Facebook page that the shared deal had been under discussion for 18 months and that the bowling club had not accepted any of their proposals.
After these discussions failed, the parents’ group decided to hand the matter over to the Education Department, so that it could make the necessary applications to the city council. The group also said the Camps Bay community would still be able to use the hall and fields.
‘A school would be the best way to preserve the much-valued green belt. This option, rather than building a new school on different land in Camps Bay, will save huge amounts of money that is desperately needed by other schools.’
Casey said the department had already considered other sites as alternatives to the bowling club.
Cape Argus
Posted at 09:27AM May 30, 2014
by Editor in Cape Town |
by Editor in Cape Town |
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