DEAR Editor,-
Last Saturday morning I awoke to a scene reminiscent of an imaginative American ‘apocalypse’ type movie where inhabitants of a city are surrounded by the whole array of American armed forces and locked down in their city due to some horrific disease that needed to be contained.
But this was not a futuristic American movie. It was Margate town and outside the gate to my apartment, the road was barricaded with metal fencing as far as the eye could see, preventing me from going in any direction except ‘south’. There were blue-lighted security vehicles everywhere. I have never seen so many law enforcement vehicles and officers in one place at one time!
I think I can be forgiven for rubbing my eyes in total disbelief at this disturbing transformation and for thinking we had been invaded by some sinister force overnight! I was planning to go fishing early on my jet ski and sorely needed a cup of coffee on the way, but had to travel several kilometres before I could find a place situated on the southbound lane, which eventually turned out to be in Ramsgate.
It was simply impossible to get to any shop on the northbound lane due to the barricades. On returning later in the morning, I took the main highway, trying to avoid the shambles in town as I would now not be able to turn right into my apartment if I took the direct route through town. Of course, at the Seaslopes off-ramp there was quite simply traffic ‘chaos’ and so I changed my route to the lower beach road from the Uvongo Pier to Margate north beach, so I could ‘filter in’ at Manaba. This shortened my wait and saved me some small degree of frustration.
The point is, as a ratepayer, I want to know who authorised this idiotic venture, which turned Margate into mayhem on a long weekend? What was the value to the town when all I saw was a few cyclists occasionally passing by? This was by no means a spectacle with throngs of interested spectators lining streets to cheer cyclists on. Who paid for the hiring of kilometres of barricade fencing? And who is paying the wages of all the security personnel (bearing in mind they will probably be paid overtime wages for Saturday afternoon and Sunday)?
Who is going to compensate those businesses, which no doubt lost out big-time financially over a long weekend because their businesses were inaccessible? And, very importantly, was any consideration given to those visitors to our town, who had no knowledge of this event? I am a local and never knew it was going to happen? They must have been totally bewildered in trying to navigate to and from their places of abode, beaches and shops!
In my view, what happened last weekend was simply shocking and someone has to put his or her hands up and answer to this. I am sure I will not be the only person infuriated and flabbergasted over the happenings of last weekend.
FLABBERGASTED
Margate
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