Closure of CT port access road ‘inevitable’

RAY SMUTS A HARBOUR road used as a public thoroughfare by thousands of motorists is clearly not in the spirit of the International Port and Ship Facility Security code (ISPS), and here lies the port of Cape Town’s dilemma - someone has yet to come up with an effective antidote. The first monthly get-together of a working group representing the city and port managers and the harbour master failed to resolve the Duncan Road problem. The port’s new harbour master Captain Rufus Lekala says no firm decision has yet been taken to close the road but this is inevitable in terms of the ISPS code. As to an alternative should the authorities decide to keep the road open, Lekala replies matter-of-factly: “We don’t have one.” The problem facing city and port authorities is that motorists travelling to the city or V&A Waterfront from areas like Table Bay, Blaauwberg and the West Coast use Duncan Road as a convenient beat-the-traffic option, which impacts negatively on bona fide port users and gives rise to disrupted schedules. “You now have 2 000 cars an hour travelling on a single road through what is a 24-hour working harbour and we are under pressure from the lines to turn their ships around quickly,” says Lekala. Widely travelled, the former East London harbour master says he has never come across the kind of scenario that exists in the Mother City port. R25 million has been spent on fencing off the harbour while the main port road is used largely as a public thoroughfare.