Welcome to the May edition of the Blackheath CID! This was a very busy month for the staff and Directors of the BCID as we reviewed the Blackheath Business Retention and Expansion Strategy Survey that was carried out by the City of Cape Town on request of the Blackheath CID a few months ago. Sixty-two local companies participated in this survey and the findings are included in a Report that is available on our website at www.bcid.co.za
You may download and peruse this document and we welcome any feedback that you would like to provide. During our workshops with Officials from the City of Cape Town’s Economic Development directorate we highlighted area concerns and prioritised certain issues in order to create a platform for future consultation with the City and the respective directorates that could attend to these concerns and issues that we feel are a priority.
Infrastructure upgrades, Eskom upgrades, Telkom and internet upgrades as well as issues relating to crime and grime came to the forefront during our discussions. We will now move to engaging with the respective responsible directorates at the City of Cape Town to plot a way forward and attract budget and resources to address these area specific priorities.
This will lead to a public open day where we will bring information, the Officials from economic development and Blackheath business owners together to engage in a valuable interaction. This will underpin and reinforce the issues highlighted for urgent attention and further motivate the City to prioritise spending within the Blackheath Industrial Area to attract further investment, assist current business by providing high level infrastructure and basic Municipal services and to promote and grow the local economy in a range of focussed initiatives.
We also discussed red tape and the challenges being faced by developers. Several issues relating to the provision and availability of power from Eskom and City planning came to the fore. The Western Cape government has provided a Red Tape to Red Carpet initiative that you can visit at http://www.westerncape.gov.za/redtapereduction/ to find out how this may be of help to you in matters relating to lengthy bureaucratic processes.
We will have some valuable feedback and presentations with interesting guest speakers at both the planned open day (Date to be confirmed once information is available from the survey and the City) and at our Annual General Meeting.