A couple of us went on an early morning trip to the beach yesterday (July 19, 2008) to photograph the sunrise and we were amazed to find that the beach in front of Ushaka Marine World was a disaster zone. By the look of things, an effort is being made to shore up the path in front of the tourist attraction with large sandbags, but the place is a total mess. The snake park was recently demolished partly because it was "
located in the coastal erosion zone" and unviable in the long term. From the current evidence, it looks to me as if Ushaka might be in the same category.
I could understand if there had been a major storm in the past week but the damage is clearly older than that. The beach is supposed to be the jewel in our tourism crown and more effort should be put into getting it right again. I'm not suggesting anything too radical like redeploying the gangs of workers currently putting up the signs with new street names, just that an effort needs to be made to respond quickly to things like this. The city depends on tourism and we cannot afford to let things slide like this.
We found another example of how things deteriorate if not given prompt attention, see below. Not finding any possibility of breakfast at Ushaka (at 8am on Saurday morning, which is something else the tourist wouldn't necessarily understand) we went along to the Suncoast Casino and parked right next to Pirates lifesaving club. The fence is between the beach and walkway is broken and quite clearly this is nothing recent. There are similar examples all the way along the beachfront.
It's all very well coming up with major and costly plans for the beachfront (some are currently in the pipeline) but in the meantime, if a fence breaks, it should be fixed immediately. If a lamp post or sign is rusty, it should be painted.
I could understand if there had been a major storm in the past week but the damage is clearly older than that. The beach is supposed to be the jewel in our tourism crown and more effort should be put into getting it right again. I'm not suggesting anything too radical like redeploying the gangs of workers currently putting up the signs with new street names, just that an effort needs to be made to respond quickly to things like this. The city depends on tourism and we cannot afford to let things slide like this.
We found another example of how things deteriorate if not given prompt attention, see below. Not finding any possibility of breakfast at Ushaka (at 8am on Saurday morning, which is something else the tourist wouldn't necessarily understand) we went along to the Suncoast Casino and parked right next to Pirates lifesaving club. The fence is between the beach and walkway is broken and quite clearly this is nothing recent. There are similar examples all the way along the beachfront.
It's all very well coming up with major and costly plans for the beachfront (some are currently in the pipeline) but in the meantime, if a fence breaks, it should be fixed immediately. If a lamp post or sign is rusty, it should be painted.
Durbans main Tourist attraction is the beachfront. One can see why we no longer qualify for BLUE FLAG status! That fence has been like that for ages and if my memory serves me correctly, there is a power cable laying out in the open.
ReplyDeleteIt would seem that Health and Safety issues have taken a back seat.
HB