Historic Simon’s Town, the home of the South African Navy, is losing the battle against time as many of its oldest buildings fall apart.
And the department of public works and infrastructure says its maintenance and repairs budget can’t stretch far enough to attend to all the problems.
Several navy buildings, including some protected heritage buildings, are either boarded up, crumbling apart, or in dire need of repair. DPWI this week acknowledged maintenance issues were related to budget constraints.
“There are insufficient resources due to other competing state priorities. However, maintenance of state buildings continues to be undertaken by both the user department and this department,” said DPW spokesperson Thami Mchunu.
“There are a number of buildings that require maintenance and in some instances work is undertaken. However, the resources are not sufficient for all work to be undertaken at the same time, and therefore we prioritise and work systematically through the priority lists,” Mchunu said.
Simon’s Town heritage stakeholders believe some of their local buildings may soon be beyond repair, including the iconic Palace Barracks building right at the entrance to the seaside suburb. One of its walls has collapsed, clearly visible from the main road into town. “After the damage sustained recently, I don’t expect it to last the winter,” commented Simon’s Town Museum manager Cathy Salter-Jansen. “One only has to take a walk around ST, to see that decay and deterioration is par for the course.”
Several of the worst-affected buildings appeared to be unoccupied when TimesLIVE Premium visited last week. A sign on the outside timber wall of the old navy headquarters building warns passers-by to “Beware of Falling Objects”.
“It’s in view of visitors and boarded windows and flecked paint do not give a good impression,” commented one Simon’s Town resident.
The front gate to the Palace Barracks is broken and its guardhouse derelict.
Deteriorating buildings add to the navy’s defence budget woes. The fleet has been hard hit by delays in refits and planned maintenance.
A source working in the navy dockyard said there was a large hole in one of the workshop roofs, in an area used for welding: “You can imagine what that place looks like when we have a downpour. That has become a hazard now. How do you expect people to work in an environment where it is raining on them and using welding machines? That is just one of many examples here of things that are basically falling apart,” said the dockyard source.
Other affected Simon’s Town buildings include The Residency (1777), home to the Simon’s Town Museum, and The Postholder’s House (1758).
Salter-Jansen said older buildings were more vulnerable to weathering and required urgent attention: “The Residency, like so many of the old buildings in Simon’s Town, has no foundations, is built of clay bricks, rocks and rubble and plastered with lime plaster, finished off with a coat of whitewash. The greatest threat to this building and the other very old, historic buildings in ST, is water,” she said.
Navy spokesperson Prince Tshabalala this week confirmed building challenges and said the navy was doing what it could to attend to the most critical maintenance and repairs: “The South African Navy is well are aware of the challenges that we have with regarding the state of the navy buildings,” Tshabalala said. “As you already indicated these buildings belong to DPWI, nevertheless the South African Navy has constantly reported these matters to DPWI, therefore we are not privy to determine when the DPW will allocate contracts for repairs to fix our buildings. We have done repairs where we can in some buildings. There is work being conducted in Hugo Bierman with the limited budget we have. However, the responsibility of repairs of government buildings is with DPWI. They are the main authority who could shed more answers on this matter,” he said.
TimesLIVE Premium has previously reported on other casualties of DPWI budget cuts, including two buildings abandoned by military personnel at Wynberg Military base. A community of vagrants has moved into the buildings which have been completely stripped of fittings. The once-historic site, called Waterloo Green, has become a source of conflict between local ratepayers, the City of Cape Town and national government, with nobody seemingly willing to intervene — except for good Samaritans who occasionally drop off food and other supplies for the struggling “residents”.
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