We want Tidy Towns
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When Margate’s once-pristine beachfront began to decline, two residents decided to do something unusual: they picked up brooms.
In late 2021, businessman Stephen Herbst and former detective Reg Horne grew tired of waiting for municipal interventions. Instead, they founded Tidy Towns Shelly to Margate. Tidy Towns is a clean-up initiative that has since transformed stretches of the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast.
Their method is simple. Volunteers, backed by local businesses and informal workers, clean beaches, repaint railings, plant aloes and mend public spaces.
What began as a frustrated surf-chat has ballooned into a regional movement spanning Margate, Ramsgate and beyond. Today, thousands of residents participate in regular clean-ups, with municipalities increasingly recognising the value of these citizen brigades.
The effects are visible: beaches have regained Blue Flag status and public spaces once abandoned to decay now bloom with coastal succulents.
More importantly, the initiative has rekindled a sense of ownership. Tidy Towns is less about litter and more about attitude, a reminder that civic pride need not wait for bureaucratic rescue.
In a country where state capacity is constantly failing, the South Coast’s example offers a quiet but potent lesson. Proactivity works. It is time more communities embraced the “ons sal self” spirit.
Independent news and opinion articles with a focus on the Western Cape, written for a more conservative audience – the silent majority with good old common sense.
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