Dear Editor,
In accordance with the Sea Defence Act it is illegal for the owners of the Celina Resort to be granted a lease and allowed to build the resort over an existing grouted boulder slope sea wall.
I refer to articles in both SN and KN dated January 14 on the Celina Resort, and it would be interesting to know if the Sea Defence Board which is the legal authority, or someone higher up gave permission to the owners to build this resort on top of an existing boulder sea wall which consists of a concrete coping, grouted concrete boulder berm and slope, steel piling and 4 layers of gabion baskets. The present shell built up over the existing wall can easily disappear overnight during an erosion cycle, causing the resort foundations to collapse and damage the grouted boulder wall below. I designed and built this wall in 1968 due to imminent erosion conditions of the foreshore at that time.
Over 400 feet of courida trees on the foreshore in front of the wall were uprooted by the erosion and disappeared shortly after construction of the wall.
Only in rare cases is permission granted by the Sea Defence Board to build minor structures (for religious purposes) seaward of the sea dam, and the responsibility to remove same during an erosion cycle rests with the owners.
On account of severe erosion on the East Coast during the late ’60s, Parliament on the advice of myself and other engineers in the Hydraulics Division amended the Sea Defence Act, preventing construction of buildings and other structures in several areas of the coast landwards from 50 feet to 1000 feet from the centre line of the sea dam.
Hansard recorded the ratification of this amendment at that time, and as far I know it is still the law.
I would further like to enquire if this is the case, isn’t the Pradoville II Housing Scheme at Sparendaam where the President is currently building his mansion not one of the areas mentioned above and not in contravention of the Sea Defence Act?
Yours faithfully,
M Alli
