By Timothy Twidle

The Bitou municipality is poised to begin the next phase of its urban integration project with the building of new municipal offices in a dedicated government precinct outside Plettenberg Bay‘s central business district.

The aim of the project is to change the social and economic structures set up during the apartheid era and to create urban living conditions that are participative, equitable and unified.

The project is central to the Coming Together programme announced at a Bitou council meeting earlier this week.

The first of the 11 sub-projects of the urban renewal is the development of Main Street, which is already well under way.

The others include renovation of the taxi rank at the entrance to the town, together with the provision of a market for traders.

The Central Beach area will be upgraded to provide greater harmony between leisure and business activities, while a cultural precinct will be set up in the vicinity of historic sites.

Once the new municipal park has been built, the sites presently occupied by the municipality for offices, as well as the public works department, post office, police and provincial roads department, will be redeveloped.

A tourism, hotel and conference facility is planned for the site presently occupied by the municipal offices and will be called Anchor Place.

The second major leg of the urban integration initiative is the New Town Centre Project.

It has at its epicentre a new Bitou Municipality Centre that will incorporate a post office, a magistrate's court, an Eskom office, a taxi rank and a market area.

There will also be a government services centre that will include the line functions of the departments of social services, home affairs, labour, education, housing, water affairs and forestry, tourism and environmental affairs, justice, and the SA Revenue Service.

Other components include social housing, high-density residential housing and a shopping centre.

Capital budget allocations of R10-million, R40-million and R30-million respectively have been allocated to the municipality for expenditure on new municipal buildings over the next three financial years.

Source: The Herald