Susanne Amelung writes:
George Herald published at least two articles about tree planting this year.
On 4 July, there was a report titled "George needs bigger tree canopy" on the tree canopy in George and the need of urban greening, which is part of the George Municipality's Integrated Development Plan (IDP) and the Municipality Spatial Development Framework (MSDF) of George.
The second article was published on 22 August, titled "Call to plant 1 million trees". This is part of a national project to plant 10 million trees.
The municipality appears not to have read either of these articles.
The parking space of New Harvest was one of the less attractive parts of George for years. I was always wondering how much it would benefit it if [there were] at least some trees between all the cars and trucks.
Now it is fenced, almost completely paved, but not a single tree on about 2 000m² cement. No shade for the cars, no canopy under which people can load all their shopping, no perching or nesting space for the few birds that live in this area. Urban sealing and heating it at maximum.
But perhaps the municipality looks at its failure of the Eden Meander parking - about 30 trees and in 10 years, not one has grown - and decided not to have the same scenario again.
2 000m² of cement with no appropriate drainage. Heavy rain, which is defined as about 7.6mm per hour, will result in almost 8 000Ls of water running off this car park into Cradock Street within one hour. This with the additional water coming from other properties will almost certainly result in an urban flood.
Could the town planning not have had more thoughts behind this project?
What a pity.
