MOSSEL BAY NEWS - Mossel Bay Municipality has provided an overview of the festive season, which is interesting for both residents and visitors to read.

Season monitoring

As in previous years, the Mossel Bay Municipality hosted its daily monitoring meetings during the festive season. This year the meetings took place from 5 December to 6 January.

These meeting, facilitated and convened by the municipality, involved all service providers involved in ensuring visitors to Mossel Bay have a splendid holiday and enjoy excellent service delivery.

At these meetings, any issues pertaining to service delivery and management are tabled and possible solutions discussed. The turnaround time is 24 hours generally, with feedback on the implementation of the solution expected to be reported on at the next meeting.

This year, with the holiday season starting earlier due to the first Matriekbaai event hosted at Dias Beach, the season monitoring meetings commenced earlier than usual.

At the conclusion of the meetings on 6 January, municipal director of Community Services Elize Nel, who is currently acting municipal manager, as well as acting director of Community Safety, thanked all the role players for their commitment and service, under often trying circumstances during a bumper season for Mossel Bay.

“Thank you for your positive attitude and focus on serving our community. Most of you sacrificed family time and rest during the Christmas and New Year long weekends to work. It is not going amiss and greatly appreciated by our administration.”

Beaches

Feedback from lifesaving service providers. (Statistics from 1 December to 10 January.)

• 589 994 people visited Mossel Bay beaches from 1 December 2022 to 10 January.
• Cloete se gat (Hartenbos) was the busiest beach, with 94 358 visitors, followed by Santos (67 358), with Koffiehuis (Hartenbos) and Suiderkruismond (Great Brak) beaches with 44 597 and 44 362 visitors respectively.
• 260 rescues were carried out.
• 906 stings were treated.
• 26 cases of sunburn.
• 136 abrasions were treated.
• 26 sprains or fractures were treated.
• 1 heart attack was treated.
• 4 drownings were reported.

Dias Beach was closed briefly following the stranding of four pygmy sperm whales there on 20 December.

The beach was closed for swimming as a precautionary measure due to expected shark activity. During clean-up operations, removing the carcasses, the bloody run-off may have lured sharks to the area. The beach was reopened for swimming on 23 December.

Fire and Rescue

Mossel Bay Fire, Rescue and Disaster Management Services noted an increase of incidents responded to compared to the same period last year: 112 compared to 82. False alarms increased alarmingly from three the previous year to 42 this season. The service also increased its fire prevention and safety activities to 190 this season.

Infrastructure

Apart from the continued load-shedding, no serious infrastructure issued were reported.

Shortly before Christmas, Glentana experienced an extensive power outage as a result of damage to a mini substation.

Electrical teams dug a trench to do repairs. The digging started at 23:30 (23 December) and by 04:30 (24 December), cables were repaired and the power restored.

Hartenbos and Bayview became a hot spot for the illegal removal of road signs by members of the public. Approximately 20 road signs were removed collectively in these areas.

Traffic control and beach safety

The Mossel Bay Municipality used contractors to provide staff who did point duty to alleviate traffic congestion.

Traffic controllers manned 17 points during the holiday season, which included hot spots on Louis Fourie Road near popular beaches and other amenities.

Twenty-four trained and experienced traffic controllers were employed.

The same contractor, who has a track record of more than 12 years’ service to the municipality, also supplied 25 guards, offering access control at beaches, as well as 22 guards doing duty in parking areas.

Additional security staff were assigned to the Blue Flag beaches, as per the criteria of this prestigious accolade. Following a needs determination, more guards were deployed at Santos, De Bakke and Dias beaches, to include a second shift ending at 22:00 or 00:00 depending on the specific beach in question.

Guards and traffic controllers were deployed on 10 December and ended their duties on 8 January. Guards will remain at the Blue Flag beaches until the end of Blue Flag season, 31 January.

The most common issues reported were dogs on beaches in transgression with the seasonal stipulations, illegal use of alcohol on public areas at beaches and anglers fishing in close proximity to swimmers.

No serious incidents, apart from the drownings mentioned, were reported.

Municipal law enforcement officials were deployed to do quadbike patrols on the beaches as an additional safety measure. These were particularly useful in die Dias Beach area during the Matriekbaai festival.

Traffic and law enforcement

This season, the Joint Operation Centre proved its worth, being fully operational for the first time since it was officially opened in August 2022.

Thanks to an integrated and collaborative approach to community safety, issues were dealt with effectively.

The municipality believes in strategic partnerships. In terms of community safety, this approach paid off handsomely, thanks to the collaborative efforts of the police, community policing forums and neighbourhood watch groups.

During December, municipal traffic and law enforcement services did the following:

• Vehicle check points with police and neighbourhood watch groups: 61
• Vehicle checkpoints (roadworthiness and driver’s licences). Vehicles checked: 1 775
• Offences: 1 200
• Speed control actions: 41
• Complaints (received and attended to): 1 111
• Illegal advertisements removed: 91
• Illegal hawking (goods confiscated): 177
• Special duties: 49
• Motor vehicle accidents attended to: 24
• Drunken drivers arrested (only municipal traffic services, not Provincial Traffic): 32

The Town’s House

Two years ago Mossel Bay Municipality invested in the revamp of The Town’s House, at 3 Market Street, next to Mossel Bay Tourism.

This was done to preserve the historical value of this iconic building, previously called the Arts and Craft Centre, and create a vibrant new hub, where artists and crafters can sell their work.

The centre is rented from the municipality by Mossel Bay Tourism, which manages The Town’s House and its various traders. The selection of artists and crafters is done with great care to ensure Mossel Bay’s best and most unique products are given a worthy sales platform.

Mossel Bay Tourism reports that The Town’s House experienced a bumper festive season income.

During December, the centre had about 65 000 transactions. Usually the centre has about 10 000 transactions per month.

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