Millions lost as Pilgrim’s Rest caravan park goes to ruin
Some independent developers that inspected the site last week said millions of rand's worth of damage has been done to a public asset that was quite functional until recently.
PILGRIM’S REST – The Mpumalanga Department of Public Works, Roads and Transport (DPWRT) has admitted that the local caravan park was in its care when it became disused and finally vandalised, to its current state of utter disrepair.
Some independent developers that inspected the site last week said millions of rand’s worth of damage has been done to a public asset that was quite functional until recently. Someone has to be held accountable for this loss of property value, tourism potential and valuable job opportunities to a community already suffering from government mismanagement on many visible levels in Pilgrim’s Rest, said the chairman of Mpumalanga Heritage, Duncan Ballantyne.
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The caravan park and camping site, once among the most popular in the country, were an asset of the old Transvaal Provincial Administration before they were handed down to the newly formed Mpumalanga Provincial Administration after 1994.
As has been the case with the rest of this museum town and heritage site, they were carried over into the care and administration of the Mpumalanga DPWRT.
The department said in a media enquiry this week that the last lessee terminated their contract in 2015 and the premises was left without a tenant. It was advertised several times and the tender was always non-responsive. The last event hosted in the caravan park was the Staffie Rally in 2016.
What happened after 1994 was that the Royal Hotel and the caravan park remained under the management of Overvaal Resorts, an ex-TPA utility company which was later sold to the worldwide American Forever Resorts. After an unsatisfactory lease agreement with DPWRT, Overvaal/Forever Resorts left and a short lease of only five years was given to Buks de Bruyn. Apparently his lease was never renewed after some dispute with the then-DPWRT head of department.
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Two more lease agreements were granted in succession, but both lessees left due to the dwindling tourism interest in the area as well as an increasing security programme. The upkeep of the facility, as well as the lack of support from the DPWRT in this regard, prevented it from being sufficiently profitable.
The last lessee totally changed the demographic of the park by providing for the contractor’s market rather than the tourism market, and so changed the ablution and other recreational facilities into permanent housing.
This lasted for another two years until this contractor also left. The DPWRT should have then taken over and secured the premises for future lessees.
Since this enquiry, as well as the recent community and media pressure on the department to finalise proper financially viable leases on all properties standing empty in Pilgrim’s Rest, negotiations were entered into with Mpumalanga Regional Training Trust (MRTT), a provincial training utility company, to take over the management of the caravan park. MRTT is also running the Royal Hotel on a commercial basis, though – according to sources – it is currently struggling to make ends meet.
DPWRT’s Cyril Dlamini said all tender applications have to be accompanied by business proposals with a financial plan. This is now under discussion between the new lessee, MRTT, and his department.
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