More than 100,000 people flocked to the Nelson Mandela Bay beachfront on every peak day in the past holiday season
— with not a single incident of crime reported over December 2022.
Visitor feedback on the safety and cleanliness of the beachfront was overwhelmingly positive, the hospitality sector and local businesses had one of their best seasons in years and residents were able to safely enjoy their beachfront.
The beachfront is not only a wonderful asset to the Bay for leisure, recreation and sporting events, for locals as well as visitors, but also for business tourism, conferencing and exhibitions — all with the associated positive economic impact of employment and investment.
It is a vital asset for Nelson Mandela Bay tourism and the local economy.
The success of the season was largely due to the Beachfront Safety Sector Forum, together with the Summerstrand Neighbourhood Watch, effectively collaborating with local government, law enforcement agencies and private security operators.
Cameras were installed, monitored 24/7 by a new control room with donated equipment and the metro police in place to respond, with additional reserve traffic officers engaged for the season.
From the first week of December to the first week of January, security patrols were stepped up, there was visible policing, bylaw enforcement, frequent roadblocks, and ongoing cleaning.
However, the safety and security momentum did not continue — the additional patrols were withdrawn from early January and the control room is now not staffed.
This highlights, first, the power of collaboration and what can be achieved by working together in the common interest, for the greater good, but, second, that such efforts need a sustainable way forward — they cannot rely solely on volunteers but require public sector support and resources.
As much as December was a great, incident-free season, the reality is that the beachfront urgently needs attention, to reverse the decay of the past few years, to restore facilities such as the King’s Beach urban park, to address issues such as sanitation, to upgrade and maintain infrastructure, and address safety concerns.
To some extent, our metro benefited from Durban’s loss in December, as concerns over sanitation issues saw a dramatic fall in holiday bookings there.
However, if the issues facing our beachfront are not addressed, if we do not retain key sporting events and the Blue Flag status of King’s, Humewood and Hobie beaches — we face the same fate.
The Business Chamber is seeing the positive impact of the approach of forming geographic clusters in industrial and commercial nodes of the metro, with businesses and other stakeholders coming together to pool resources and skills to address common challenges specific to their areas.
To date seven geographic clusters have emerged under the banner of the Chamber, with the learnings and best practices from each cluster being openly shared through a mega cluster platform.
This, together with the Master MOU signed between the municipality and the Chamber, has helped to accelerate the various interventions and initiatives.
The latest to be established, last month, is the Beachfront Cluster — focusing on supporting tourism through the collaboration of beachfront businesses and residents engaging with local government and other relevant authorities, particularly on safety and security, cleaning, and the natural environment.
To this end, the Cluster has already met with the Beachfront Safety Sector Forum to consider how we can work together and complement each other’s efforts for the greater good.
It is widely agreed, and not just by passionately patriotic locals, that Nelson Mandela Bay has the most scenic, accessible, amenable and family-friendly beachfront in the country.
The beachfront is a valuable asset for the citizens and tourist-dependent businesses in Nelson Mandela Bay, and we need to work together as public and private sector custodians of our natural resources, amenities and infrastructure, for a sustainable future for the Bay.
Everyone in the Bay feels they “own” the beachfront — the entire city has an interest and a stake in improving the beachfront, and all will benefit.