Cape Town - The illegal invasions of subway spaces in and around Rondebosch are something of the past.
This is the bold statement of Mikhail Manuel, a local ward councillor who is on a mission to reclaim the invaded subways.
Manuel says that four of the five subways in his ward were invaded during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“These subways were permanently locked during the Covid-19 lockdown and as a result, people moved into them.
“For the last two years social development and law enforcement have been meeting with the people living in them and steadily over time the number of people living there has been reduced,” Manuel says.
There are 21 subways in Ward 59, five are managed by Prasa and the remaining 16 by the City of Cape Town.
Of the 16 City subways, five have been permanently invaded during the last two years.
According to Manuel this then turned into the perfect place for criminal activity to brew.
“A locked subway becomes an invaded subway, a perfect hub for crime. One subway, though, remained clean and operational, the Bishops subway,” Manuel says.
There are seven schools, three retirement homes, the Rondebosch Park, the Rondebosch Common, cafes, and a local shopping centre all within an 800m radius of the Campground Road and Liesbeek Parkway subways.
Bernard Soules, chairperson of the Rondebosch Community Policing Forum says for them to create a safe space, the subways need to be cleared.
“The community has been complaining because people live in the subways and the conditions are poor.
“We understand the situation with homelessness but there are some of the subways that the community needs to use to avoid walking across a main road,” Soules said.
He added: “We do it in an orderly fashion and just don’t kick out people, that’s why we reach out to our councillors.”
Manuel now has a decorated team that cleans up subways in the area every day to stop the recurrence of an invasion.
“I am driven by two motivations for addressing the five Campground Road subways,” he says.
