Cape Town - Tourist hot spots along the Hout Bay and Kalk Bay main roads have been “haemorrhaging profits” since the launch of the City of Cape Town’s road infrastructure upgrades in the last few months.
The manager of the BP Garage and Pick n Pay Express on Hout Bay Main Road, Asad Mia, said his business, started 15 years ago, suffered a loss of around R3 million in recent months as motorists and regular customers could not access the garage or convenience store.
When the Cape Argus tried to access the road from Cape Town’s CBD, the team was re-routed to Victoria Road and took a 45-minute detour before reaching the garage. This, said Mia, was a contributing factor affecting his profits since the road infrastructure upgrades started in May.
The road upgrade project, set to be completed by next month, is costing the city about R10m to resurface the 1.2km stretch of road from Victoria Road, the traffic circle at Imizamo Yethu and the traffic circle on Princess Street.
Pointing to a profit spreadsheet on his computer screen, Mia said over three months his business lost R2.92m in fuel sales and R343 000 in convenience store turnover. R80 000 worth of expired stock had to be thrown away.
Andrew van Heerden, who manages Kitima at the Kronendal, said in its eight years of existence, the restaurant had never experienced such a decline in patrons.
He said there had been a 40 percent decline in customers over the last three months.
Businesses along Kalk Bay and Muizenberg main roads – which are used by about 20 000 vehicles each day – were also experiencing a massive decline in customers and profits.
Mayco member for Transport Brett Herron said the public had been included in the city’s decision-making through engagements and pamphlet drops, but only six residents made use of the opportunity to engage with the city.
Road upgrades were a necessity as neglect would cause the road network to collapse “within a matter of years”.
“We are trying our best to do the maintenance and upgrades to the roads mentioned as fast as we can, but in many cases there are significant underground services which have to be dealt with as well,” Herron said.
Cape Argus