- There is less than a year’s worth of burial space estimated left at Klip Road Cemetery in Grassy Park,
- The City of Cape Town has its eye set on turning the Gilray Scouts campsite into a cemetery.
- If the proposal is successful and approved, the site in Klip Road could ensure burial space for an extra 2 000 graves.
With less than a year’s worth of burial space estimated left at Klip Road Cemetery in Grassy Park, the City of Cape Town has its eye set on turning the Gilray Scouts campsite into a cemetery.
According to Mayco member for community service and Health Patricia van der Ross, the City’s Recreation and Parks Department is actively looking at several sites across the City for potential use as cemeteries.
“The Klip Road Cemetery in Grassy Park has less than a year’s worth of vacant burial space left,” she tells the People’s Post but will continue to be used for families to reopen their family graves for second burials thereafter.
If the proposal is successful and approved, the site in Klip Road could ensure burial space for an extra 2 000 graves.
“It would prolong local burial availability and postpone the need for residents of the southern suburbs having to travel 40 to 60 km to Welmoed or Atlantis Cemetery,” says Van der Ross.
“Depending on how much of this site is found to be feasible for cemetery use, every hectare (10 000 m²) provides approximately 2 000 graves, and this would therefore suffice for many years to come.”
She explained that the City is currently conducting feasibility studies to determine whether the land at Gilray Scouts campsite is suitable for a graveyard.
“The Recreation and Parks Department has appointed consultants to undertake the necessary feasibility studies to determine if the land is considered suitable for cemetery development and the study is estimated to be completed by June this year.”
Public participation
Once the feasibility study is completed, the City will open the process for public participation.
“Only if the site is considered feasible for cemetery development will there be a public participation process,” Van der Ross pointed out.
“At the moment, it is premature to have such participation until the study confirms that the land could be used for this purpose.”
Meanwhile, the Lotus River, Grassy Park Ratepayers and residents Civic Association (Logra Civic) have voiced their goal to “fight against” the proposal.
Logra Civic executive committee member David Benjamin said they were caught unaware when reading about the proposal in the media.
“There was no public participation and they (the City) didn’t notify us so this has caught us by surprise,” he said. “Nobody spoke to us about it.”
Benjamin claimed the Gilray Scouts site was in terrible condition and neglected by the City. “That land is in a terrible state, the City can’t even look after that land,” he said. “They claim to be the owners of the land but they don’t take care of that land.
“We are going to fight them and won’t allow them to do this.”
His reasons for rejecting the proposal include the traffic impact over weekends.
He said:
He added that Klip Road Cemetery was initially supposed to cater for residents from the area but burials from other areas pushed it to capacity.
“Why is the cemetery so filled up? Because people from Mitchells Plain, Delft and Khayelitsha don’t have cemeteries so residents from other areas are buried here.”
Logra Civic hosted a public meeting on 21 May, at the League of the Friends of the Blind in 1st Road, Grassy Park at 19:30 to discuss the proposed extension of Klip Road Cemetery.
