Bergvliet high school: who is making decisions at WCED and CoCT?

More than a month after a previous press release highlighted the lack of public engagement around the proposed mega school (estimated to accommodate 1100 learners) development on Erf 1061along the Bergvliet residential interface of Cape Town’s Ward 73, the community reports that meaningful consultation remains absent.

Despite repeated efforts to engage the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) and the City of Cape Town (CoCT), no substantive dialogue has materialised.

In seeking clarity on the development’s potential impact, the community submitted two requests under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) for the Traffic Impact Assessment (TIA). Both were refused—despite PAIA giving effect to the constitutional right of access to information held by the State. Only after an appeal to the Ombudsman, who ruled in the community’s favour, was the document released.

The document provided, however, was a draft version of the TIA, raising serious governance concerns about whether planning decisions are being advanced on incomplete or unverified information.

A community survey conducted among a broad sample of Bergvliet residents identified traffic as the single greatest concern by a wide margin.

In response, the community has identified several critical issues requiring urgent scrutiny:

Traffic assumptions do not reflect real-world conditions

The sheer scale of the proposed school is the fundamental driver of traffic risk. Hundreds of vehicles converging within short peak periods cannot be absorbed by the constrained local road network. Attempting to “massage” traffic assumptions in the TIA to justify an oversized development does not solve the problem — it simply papers over it.

Key assumptions within the draft TIA appear overly optimistic and fail to show how congestion, safety risks and spillover into residential streets will be prevented. Without clear evidence that the road network can cope, the development risks gridlock, unsafe pedestrian conditions and declining quality of life for residents.

Limited transparency and weak data

The draft TIA relied on traffic counts taken over a single day (rather than the requisite two days) during exam periods—conditions that do not reflect normal peak flows. This undermines the reliability of the modelling and raises questions about whether the assessment is robust enough to support decisions of this magnitude.

High likelihood of spillover into residential roads

The anticipated pressure on the primary road network creates a strong likelihood that traffic will divert into surrounding narrow residential streets.

These roads are not designed to accommodate increased volumes, and such “rat-running” would introduce significant safety risks for pedestrians and learners, particularly in areas lacking adequate sidewalks or traffic-calming infrastructure.

Social and environmental impacts

Beyond congestion and safety, the community stresses the wider social and environmental costs:

• Air pollution from idling vehicles trapped in queues, affecting learners and residents alike.
• Noise pollution spilling into quiet residential streets.
• Environmental strain from overdevelopment on a site already flagged for constraints.

These impacts compound the risks to public health, safety and community well-being.

Call for transparency and proper scrutiny

Given the scale of the development and its long-term impact on the surrounding community, transparency and rigorous scrutiny are non-negotiable. The community calls for:

• Full disclosure of the TIA’s assumptions, methodology and outputs.
• An independent peer review to verify findings under realistic conditions.
• A reassessment of whether the scale of the proposed school is appropriate for the site and surrounding infrastructure.

“Residents are not opposed to development,” a community representative said. “But decisions of this magnitude must be based on clear, transparent and rigorously tested information. Oversized projects forced through on flawed traffic data will only create congestion, pollution and risk for generations to come.”

With planning processes ongoing, the community insists that no final decisions should be taken until the traffic assessment has been fully interrogated, independently reviewed and transparently communicated — and until all related environmental and planning concerns have been properly addressed.