Municipal lifeguard tower finally repaired after two years — repaired tower immediately vandalised, municipality ‘monitoring the situation’
Gordon’s Bay
The lifeguard tower at Gordon’s Bay beach, which had been in a state of structural disrepair since early 2022 following storm damage that removed two planks from the observation deck and rendered the structure unusable for any purpose except leaning against, was formally repaired in April of this year at a cost of R34,000, a figure that prompted a question at the April council meeting and a supplementary question about what specifically costs R34,000 about three planks that was not fully resolved before the agenda moved on.
The new planks, which were pressure-treated, correctly sized and secured with what the contractor’s completion certificate described as “appropriate marine-grade fastening hardware,” lasted eleven days before someone removed three of them, for reasons that remain unclear and that the municipality confirmed it was not able to speculate about, though it noted that the removal appeared to have required tools and a degree of premeditation that went beyond ordinary opportunism.
The tower now has two of its three new planks remaining and is structurally described by the municipality’s infrastructure department as “still functional, mostly, from certain angles,” a phrase that also appears in the official incident report and which a councillor at the May meeting said she found “not entirely comforting given that people stand on it.”
The municipality confirmed it is monitoring the situation. When asked what monitoring involved in practical terms, a spokesperson said the tower had been “noted for follow-up inspection” and that the matter had been logged. When asked whether the missing plank would be replaced, the spokesperson said this would be considered once the monitoring phase was complete.
The tower’s Strava segment, created by Deon from Somerset West, shows no recent activity.
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