Thousands of protesters are threatening to boycott white-owned businesses in townships to show their dissatisfaction with a Cape High Court appeal against the final rezoning of the R10-billion Lagoon Bay Lifestyle and Golf estate at Glentana.

The protest is being arranged by the George Leadership Forum, a volunteer organisation established to address the job needs of disadvantaged community members.

Tomorrow they will march to the George municipal offices to appeal to Mayor Flip de Swardt for help.

"We are sick and tired of seeing poor people suffering without jobs," forum leader Cornelius Essau said yesterday.

He said feelings were running high and members would "boycott all white-owned businesses in our townships".

"If our people can't work in Glentana, why should we support them?"

Camp outside holiday homes

After the march, Essau said protesters planned to take buses to Glentana where they would camp outside the holiday homes of a group of residents who had objected to the final rezoning.

The forum has welcomed the massive development for its job creation potential, but the residents have appealed against the approval given earlier this year for Lagoon Bay.

"We will make sure they won’t be able to have their holidays there," Essau said.

The homeowners, who were reluctant to speak about the appeal, said through spokesperson Louis Raubenheimer that they were not happy with the environmental impact the development would have on the ecology of the area.

Werner Roux, the owner and developer of the luxury resort, planned to have two 18-hole golf courses, more than 1200 houses and lodges, 150 apartments, a hotel and conference centre, promised local residents up to 18 000 temporary construction jobs, 1200 permanent jobs, as well as homes and jobs for farmworkers living on the land.

A delay of 18 months

"This (appeal) could cost us a delay of up to 18 months," Roux said.

In May, he and other stakeholders promised jobs in the new year to 6000 unemployed people who attended a meeting at the Conville Civic Centre.

Roux said a skills audit would be done and a skills training facility built to train local labour before construction began.

Lagoon Bay was given the green light in April when former Western Cape developmental planning MEC Pierre Uys approved the record of decision.

The Wildlife and Environmental Society of Southern Africa was among those opposed to it.

The Herald

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