By Patrick Cull Political Editor
CONSTRUCTION of the controversial N2 Wild Coast toll road between East London and Durban is expected to start “before the end of the year”.
So said Transport Minister Jeff Radebe in the National Council of Provinces yesterday.
Introducing the debate on his budget, Radebe said the Wild Coast had been identified as an area for strategic development in accordance with government‘s Spatial Development Initiative (SDI) strategy as far back as 1995.
“It will not only give access to the untapped potential of the Pondoland, but in so doing address the primary inequality, namely lack of access, that has led to this being the most impoverished region of South Africa.
“We expect to see the construction of this important road starting before the end of the year.”
Before that happens, however, the national department of environmental affairs and tourism will need to issue a record of decision on the basis of a new environmental impact assessment against which there will be inevitable appeals.
Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk would have to decide whether the project should go ahead after considering the appeals. He upheld the appeals against a previous EIA on the grounds that it was fatally flawed because “it did not meet the requirement of independence” envisaged in the EIA regulations.
This did not preclude a new application from being submitted.
The proposed road would include seven mainline toll plazas, four in the Eastern Cape and three in KwaZulu Natal, located so that “the motorist would pay only for the extent of the road that is used”.
The toll road will involve: upgrading and widening 470km of existing road sections of the N2 and R61; new road construction of about 90km within two greenfields sections; construction of eight new major bridges; upgrading and/or construction of new interchanges and intersections and; construction of associated infrastructure such as toll plazas and pedestrian overpasses.
The final scoping report for the project states that the new road would connect the major economic centres of East London, Butterworth, Mthatha, Lusikisiki, Port Edward, Port Shepstone and Durban, and would be some 75 km shorter than the current route between East London and Durban.
Morgan Griffiths of Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa said his organisation was concerned with the project and they were engaged in discussion with the developers.
“We disagree with the road alignment they have proposed,” he said.