Durban’s sewage pollution crisis has turned the popular seaside town of Umhlanga into an “undesirable” holiday destination. It’ projected to lose R25m a day if its beaches don’t open during the peak summer season.
Umhlanga Tourism Association chair Duncan Heafield said this week that some beaches in the northern corridor, including Umhlanga, had been closed for more than 200 days this year.
“With the state of our beaches, Umhlanga has become an undesirable destination. Holidaymakers come here because of this attraction. We can’t be keeping people on a knife-edge, opening and closing beaches erratically.”
The eThekwini municipality says work is under way to repair damaged infrastructure and is confident all beaches will open by December 1.
But Heafield has little faith in the city’s promise.
“I think the municipality is giving us a lot of lip service in terms of infrastructure repairs and the reality on the ground.
“Site visits by myself to see the Westbrook plant stations have shown nothing has been started there. We are running short of time to meet the deadline to be open by December 1, which is a few days away.
“At Westbrook they have to almost rebuild the entire pump station from scratch. The Westbrook pump station pumps from Tongaat into the Tongaat River and goes straight into the sea for Westbrook, Casuarina beach and Zimbali.
“The Verulam pump station affects Umdloti, La Mercy and parts of Sibaya precinct beaches. The Ohlange pump station is causing most of the problems in Umhlanga. They are busy fixing that, but it might be a stopgap.”
Heafield said beaches couldn’t be treated like a tap that could be opened and closed at will.
“Once the beaches are open it takes a good seven days to get everything back on track, including the shark nets going back up and the lifeguards on the beach. The shark nets have been down for about five months,” he said.
“Realistically it will take about a week for the beaches to be fully functional once they are open. For the municipality to say that on December 1 they envisage the beaches being open, that means they have all their ducks in a row and everything is ready to go.
“That is not the case. There is also conflicting transparency from the municipality’s perspective of giving us accurate results. If you look at the beaches that are being opened by them, I’m not sure that [water test] results match the beaches.
“There is a huge disparity in the testing between independent water testing by Talbot and the municipality with some of the beaches,” said Heafield.
He said people were not booking holidays in Durban and were opting for other destinations.
“People are not going to pay for flights and accommodation and not be able to get onto the beach.
“The beaches were closed for more than 241 days in 2021 due to Covid restrictions and the UPL chemical spill after the July riots. This year we are already on 241 days and we have less than eight weeks left until the new year.
“We have well exceeded last year’s figures. These are the northern corridor beaches from Blue Lagoon all the way to Westbrook in the north.”
We had plans to come to the coast but based on stories we heard from people who have visited the area, we decided it would be took risky
— Gauteng holidaymaker Renee Esterhuizen
The association’s calculations of the impact of beach closures show that from now until November 28 Umhlanga will experience a loss of almost R10m a day in revenue by the hospitality and leisure establishments.
“We are expecting into the peak season, from November 28 onwards, a loss of R25m a day,” said Heafield.
“We have the brand-new Oceans Mall, which is a R160m investment in Umhlanga. What a tragedy it would be to have all this investment, focus and excitement and be unable to open our beaches, our best asset.”
Municipal spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela said the occupancy rate is expected to be about 75% across accommodation establishments for the festive season.
“Currently, there is a 40% occupancy rate around the beachfront and 50%-55% occupancy rates in Umhlanga. Last-minute bookings are expected at the end of November and the beginning of December.”
But the Federated Hospitality Association of South Africa (Fedhasa) in the province says accommodation establishments are worried.
“The impact, if beaches don’t open, is going to be tremendous for beachfront properties. We are seeing a direct correlation between tourist bookings and the beaches opening and closing,” said Fedhasa’s Brett Tungay.
“Tourists have booked for December and early January but they adopt a wait-and-see attitude. A lot of that is presupposed on beach conditions. Our members have already seen this happen with the erratic opening and closing of beaches in recent months. People have been cancelling at the last minute.”
Vicky Schnetler, precinct manager of Umdloti Smart Village, said while holiday establishments have indicated they are fully booked for December, there is concern that there will be cancellations if the beach is not opened soon.
Gauteng holidaymaker Renee Esterhuizen has cancelled her family break to the KwaZulu-Natal coast and opted for the Western Cape instead.
“We had plans to come to the coast but based on stories we heard from people who have visited the area, we decided it would be took risky,” she said.
“I learnt that someone got sick from brushing her teeth with tap water while staying in Umdloti. She was not even on the beach.
“We had booked and paid the deposit but there was a window period, so we were able to cancel.”
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