ON THE ROAD | George grows, residents suffer: The Garden Route town split in two - News24

George is booming, but for many residents, the cracks are showing. As the town grows, communities are grappling with sewage issues, housing shortages, electricity woes and strained infrastructure.

In the first part of our Garden Route series, News24 travelled more than 200km to examine the growing pressures facing communities in George and Hessequa ahead of the 4 November local government elections. Marvin Charles and Storm Simpson report.

On the surface, George is everything a growing Garden Route town wants to be.

There are green mountains on the horizon, new developments pushing into the landscape and a steady stream of people drawn to a town that has become one of the region’s most sought-after places to live.

But travel beyond the town centre and another George emerges. Here, residents speak about sewage running through their homes, a desperate shortage of housing, electricity they struggle to afford, and infrastructure that, they said, failed to keep pace with the town around them.

It is a town caught between two realities: one shaped by rapid growth and investment, the other by communities still waiting for the basics.

And with the 4 November local government elections approaching, that divide is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

George has changed dramatically in little more than a decade.

Its population grew from 193 672 people in 2011 to 294 929 in 2022.

The municipality is now planning for a population of about 300 000, while new homes and developments continue to reshape the town.

In Moeggehuur, an informal settlement on the outskirts of George, Jonathan Williams said the answer was not yet clear on what this growth would mean for people living on the “outside”.

For him, the town’s growth is difficult to reconcile with the conditions in which some residents live.

“There’s a massive difference between this area and the town centre. We don’t have houses; you don’t see a bungalow in the town. Look how the place looks [here]; the filth is everywhere,” he said.

Williams added that he intended to vote for the PA.

In New Dawn Park, Julie April said a damaged wall had affected a pipe, leaving raw sewage running through his home.

“I have complained so many times about this. There’s sewage water running through my house. How must I feel as a human being? Do they want my child to die? How can the government not plan for us?” April added.

It is a question that cuts through the broader debate about George’s future.

Because while planners, developers and politicians talk about a town preparing for another wave of growth, some residents are still asking for the infrastructure needed to make their existing homes liveable.

Earlier this year, the Garden Route Dam had fallen to 44.77% capacity, down dramatically from 87.87% a year earlier.

The municipality responded with Level 2D restrictions and emergency tariffs. Households were limited to 10 000 litres of water per month. Irrigation of all sports fields was prohibited; businesses were required to limit consumption by 25%, among other measures implemented.

By September, the dam was 100% full, while the Haarlem Dam had risen above capacity.

For a town that had spent months worrying about water security, the change was dramatic.

But for those watching George’s growth, the full dam is not the end of the story.

It is another reminder of how quickly the town’s demands can change.

On 15 September, daily water consumption stood at 36.2 million litres, slightly above the municipality’s target of 36 million litres.

Desireé du Preez of the Garden Route Dam Action Group said the town needed to think beyond the next rainfall.

“The problem is that when it rains, the dam fills up and then it can be emptied fairly quickly because the demand is high,” she added.

For Du Preez, the question is not whether George should continue to grow but whether that growth is being matched by adequate planning.

“I would love to see the municipality develop a framework for the future planning of George that actually links up the development with the availability of resources,” she said.

“You don’t want to stop development, but there can be measures.

“I think there must be a balance between development and planning for the water supply.”

The municipality said it would not impose a blanket moratorium on major developments based on the current El Niño outlook.

Instead, larger developments must incorporate water demand management measures.

The municipality said it had invested heavily in water treatment and distribution and was pursuing a range of longer-term options, including groundwater, indirect potable reuse, conservation and the possible construction of a new dam on the Malgas River.

The municipality estimated that a new dam could take about eight years to complete.

For a town growing now, that is a long time to wait.

For Moos van Vuuren, the immediate struggle is electricity.

He said prepaid electricity purchases were being reduced by deductions towards outstanding credit, leaving residents with far less electricity than they had paid for.

“If you go and buy R5’s worth of electricity now, you only get R2.50’s worth; the rest goes towards the credit. Now what does that mean? I can be PA, I can be DA, I can be GOOD, but at the end of the day, nothing happens.

“But the hardest thing right now at this very moment is our electricity situation. We’re back to the old days, to the time our grandfathers and great-grandfathers used open fires because we can’t use electricity,” Van Vuuren added.

Pacaltsdorp, a predominantly coloured community with historical roots as a Khoi-Khoi settlement known as Hoogekraal, sits at the heart of that tension.

It is also becoming an increasingly important political battleground, with smaller parties seeking to challenge the DA’s traditional support among coloured voters.

The PA is making inroads, while other parties are also attempting to carve out support ahead of the elections.

News24 has previously reported on the PA’s challenge to the DA in George, including in Cornville, once regarded as a DA stronghold.

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