Cape Town river rehab projects to go ahead after City reverses decision to delay budget spend

Following public outcry over the City of Cape Town’s decision last year to delay key river rehabilitation projects in its Liveable Urban Waterways programme by 10 years, the City has now reinstated the items on its draft budget, which is out for public participation until 2 May 2025. 

The rehabilitation projects back on the budget are along the Grootboschkloof, Westlake, and Keyser rivers – all within the Sand River Catchment in the southern suburbs of Cape Town – and will commence in the 2025/26 financial year once the draft budget has been approved. 

While the future of these projects, as well as along the Spaanschemat River, was uncertain last year, two projects in the programme did go ahead – at the Sand/Langvlei Canal and the Vygekraal River.

Community organisations, residents, environmental groups, conservation organisations, City partners, and counsellors rallied together to prevent the decade-long delay, urging that this work is crucial for ecosystem services critical to the livability of Cape Town in the face of impacts from climate change.

Read more: Budget cuts dampen Cape Town’s river rehabilitation, with key projects delayed for 10 years



A year ago, following budgetary cuts from the national government, the City delayed the implementation of key projects to the final years of its 10-year capital programme. This prompted strong opposition from a variety of stakeholders, which saw a petition to fully fund the programme garner more than 4,000 signatures. 

Councillor Alex Lansdowne, deputy chairperson of the mayoral advisory committee on water quality in wetlands and waterways, said that while they understood the financial constraints, the committee did not support the 10-year delay in implementation of these projects. 

“The previously delayed rehabilitation projects are now on track for implementation over the course of the next three years.”

As echoed by various community stakeholders, Lansdowne said such a delay would affect the environment and render planning and design work already completed by March 2024 obsolete, requiring a costly rework.

Lansdowne and other committee members engaged with City officials and the political leadership to advocate for the implementation of the rehabilitation projects.

“The previously delayed rehabilitation projects are now on track for implementation over the course of the next three years,” Lansdowne said.

The mayoral committee member for water and sanitation, Zahid Badroodien, said the City reviews budgets annually and, after assessing delays in other projects, accommodated these “much-needed interventions”. 

He said the LUW projects were never halted, but had been affected by the City’s borrowing capability and affordability constraints.

The draft budget now proposes R98.2-million for LUW from 2026 to 2030, with R203.9-million earmarked for LUW projects in 2025/26 alone. 

Funding for the Keysers, Grootboschkloof and Westlake rivers has been restored, with adjustments for the Sand/Langvlei Canal to cover future implementation, compliance, and landscaping.

Budgetary reversal 

The Westlake River supports life, a quiet reminder of what could flourish with renewed care. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

When the decision was made last year, Carolynne Franklin, a member of the city’s spatial planning and environment portfolio committee and a mayoral appointee to the Zandvlei Protected Areas Advisory Committee, told Daily Maverick that delaying these projects was a “short-sighted and obstructive desktop decision”.

Franklin says that it has taken a lot of hard work and political will by councillors, Friends groups, NGOs and NPOs to motivate for the projects to be reinstated to the budget and ensure that they will not be left on the backburner for another decade.

Liz Day, a specialist freshwater ecologist, told Daily Maverick this is good news and a very sensible decision, as delaying the projects by a decade would mean going back to the drawing board.

It would have been a waste of the funds and resources that had gone into planning processes such as expensive Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs), which would all have had to be redone. 

Her views were echoed by other stakeholders such as the chair of the Zandvlei Catchment Management Forum, Jennifer Louw.

“This pollution includes solid waste, but even more devastating is the buildup of various substances such as heavy metals, nitrogen and phosphates, to name a few and contaminants from sewerage overflows.”

The decision has far-reaching positive implications for the health of the Zandvlei Catchment and other catchments in the City.  

Louw said these catchments are struggling owing to high levels of pollution, which are increasing dramatically because of rapid urbanisation and infrastructure issues. 

“This pollution includes solid waste, but even more devastating is the buildup of various substances such as heavy metals, nitrogen and phosphates, to name a few and contaminants from sewerage overflows,” Louw said.

Catchment rehabilitation 

Pockets of natural beauty persist along the Westlake River. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

Ducks drift along the Westlake River. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

The Sand River Catchment, which includes the reinstated projects, is one of the healthiest catchments in Cape Town, draining from the Constantia and Muizenberg mountains into Zandvlei, a nationally important estuary.

Lansdowne said the rehabilitation projects in the project are all nature-based solutions designed with community stakeholders to protect the catchment from solid waste pollution and degradation factors, such as siltation and run-off. 

The LUW projects are designed to work collectively (many project sites in one catchment) for a cumulative impact. This is why the City’s approval of multiple projects is so important. 

Day said the Sand River Catchment is a good place to start with the LUW projects. While it does have water quality and other other issues, it’s not as hard hit as many of other catchments. 

“It’s a catchment where implementing the kind of river and wetland rehabilitation projects under LUW could actually have measurable impacts,” Day said.

Louw said the improvement of water quality is only one of the major benefits of these projects. 

The wetlands will also promote biodiversity, trap sediment, improve the recreational value of an area, sequester high levels of carbon from the atmosphere and positively affect the water cycle, ensuring water is able to penetrate the soil and reach the aquifer. 

The impact on residents and the livability of Cape Town is far reaching, Louw said.

“In the Sand, it really can show that in Cape Town, we can have actual rivers and wetlands that function the way they’re supposed to function, and that we can rehabilitate ecological functioning – which in so many of our other systems, are so far away, that we forget what a river should be.”

Franklin said that, given the risks posed by climate change, flooding and urban sprawl, the LUW programmes are absolutely critical to the City, not only to allow the water to permeate through its aquifers and reduce flooding, but also from a mental health perspective, to enable an enjoyment of green spaces. 

In terms of how the LUW projects address environmental justice issues, particularly in historically underserved areas, Franklin said that Westlake Upper runs through an RDP housing estate that has become historically disadvantaged.

She said that once the projects are implemented, residents will be able to see an improvement in their living conditions, a reduction in littering, a healthier riverway and system, as well as more jobs. 

“In the Sand, it really can show that in Cape Town, we can have actual rivers and wetlands that function the way they’re supposed to function, and that we can rehabilitate ecological functioning – which in so many of our other systems, are so far away, that we forget what a river should be,” Day said.

This is why she believes it is important that projects such as the LUW gain traction and focus on trying to improve those systems where it’s not too late.

Day said so many rivers have become “concrete conveyance canals filled with sewage and alien vegetation”.

These projects offer a way to hopefully bring sections of rivers back so that they are functional ecosystems. 

The ‘treatment train’

A discarded plastic packet lies amid aquatic plants, submerged in the Westlake River in Cape Town. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

A discarded plastic packet lies submerged in Westlake River. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

A dead fish floats in Westlake River on 16 April 2025. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

It is understood that the project on its own will yield varying benefits for flood reduction. However, Badroodien said there are other crucial benefits, especially improved ecology and water quality, as well as better connectivity to the water table because of increased permeability to the aquifers. 

He said it is vital to view the projects as part of a grouping and not in isolation. 

“It is intended to form part of a group of projects, which function as a ‘treatment train’ with an aggregated benefit, and, as each gets implemented, over time, they will seek to deliver on the intended catchment scale benefits,” Badroodien said.

But, according to the stakeholders, the real importance of the project as a whole is that it allows for rehabilitation at scale . 

As more projects come on board, residents will be able to see more tangible results at a catchment level with improved greening and water quality, and the rehabilitation of open spaces.

In the Sand River Catchment, for example, this will be reflected in the condition of Zandvlei.

“The more projects that come on board that are dealing with issues like water quality, upstream erosion and sedimentation, those kinds of projects would be expected to ultimately improve water quality and estuary condition in Zandvlei. Zandvlei is really the only estuary in the city that has shown a turnaround and improvement,” Day said.

These kinds of projects are becoming more and more important in cities globally, but in Cape Town, Day said it would certainly play a role in flood attenuation and addressing some of the impacts of urban heat generation.

As Badroodien explained, the LUW framework is premised on elements of livability such as achieving an acceptable water quality (improvement in E.Coli count); space for the water (net decrease in inundation); functioning ecology; improved permeability, such as a reduction in concrete linings; connecting communities; and providing a range of ecosystem services, economic and social benefits.

He said that each project is developed with this framework in mind and scaled to try and achieve it.

Residents can submit their comments on the City’s draft budget before 2 May 2025 via email ([email protected]), online, or by visiting the Subcouncil offices and calling 0800 212 176. DM

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