For the past couple of weeks, plastic pellets have been collected from different beaches in the Overstrand.

Yesterday, a large amount of nurdles washed up beyond the Gansbaai coast yesterday. Beaches most affected are Bluewater Bay, Castle Beach and the beach at Pearly Beach Resort towards Soetfontein (Skippie).

Earlier today, some nurdels were picked up from KAMMABAAI near Voëlklip beach.

This is an urgent call to volunteers to help pick up the nurdles. Nurdles are small plastic pellets about the size of a lentil. They are the raw material which nearly all our plastic products are made from.

To collect nurdles, please bring a SIEVE (to separate nurdles from the sand) and a BUCKET (most nurdles and microplastic will float in water, so a  quick way to separate them from sand  can be to simply put the collected  nurdles, sand and debris in a bucket of  water and scoop off the plastic  fragments from the top placing them)

Overstrand Law Enforcement would like to caution everyone - pedestrians and patrons of restaurants and cafés especially – to pay constant attention to their surrounds and to not leave their valuables, especially cell phones and purses, in plain sight.

Snatch-and-run-robberies typically involve someone approaching from behind and then grabbing something (your cell phone, your purse) before running of before you can react.

All too often, we tend to text and chat on our phones as we are walking along a pavement or while sitting in a café, oblivious to our surrounds. That is the ideal opening for criminals such as these to strike.

As from 1 November 2020, Overstrand Municipality has a new municipal manager: Dean Gabriël Ian O’Neill.

A self-confessed lifelong learner, Mr O’Neill originally set out to pursue a career in civil engineering, but after having served in technical capacities - first at Vredendal and then Matzikama - he changed tack and began pursuing a career in public administration in earnest.

Today, he holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration and is an Accredited Municipal Manager - a distinction very few people in the country can boast with.

O’Neill has been serving as Cape Agulhas’ municipal manager since 2013 and regards the fact that he and his team managed to obtain unqualified audit reports consecutively for the past five years as a major accomplishment.

At the Council Meeting held on Wednesday, 28 October 2020, Executive Mayor Ald Dudley Coetzee confirmed that the Municipality is busy with the fourth and final review of the current 5 year Integrated Development Plan (IDP) review for 2021/22.

In his IDP review and 2021/2024 Budget directional speech, Mayor Coetzee said an IDP is the five year development plan of the Municipality and that it is reviewed annually.

He explained that an IDP review allows Council the opportunity to ‘pause and assess’ whether they are still on track in attaining the strategic direction set at the start of the five year period. The current 5 year IDP was approved by Council on 31 May 2017 and covers the period from 1 July 2017 to 30 June 2022.