The South African Shore Angling Association is not hopeful of a decision in its favour after the Port Elizabeth High Court, on Thursday, reserved judgement on their application challenging the ban of 4×4 vehicles from beaches.
The South African Shore Angling Association is not hopeful of a decision in its favour after the Port Elizabeth High Court on Thursday reserved judgement about their application challenging the ban of 4×4 vehicles from beaches.
Vincent Taylor, vice-chairman of the association, told CARtoday.com the judge had turned down their application for exemption from the new law for an Anglers’ week competition to be held near Port Elizabeth next week. “It doesn’t look good at the moment,” he said.
“The judge said we had enough time to have an environmental impact assessment (EIA) done since the ban was introduced. It’s generally never been the anglers’ duty to organise the EIA and it does cost a lot to hire consultants to complete the assessment. An EIA is usually done when there will be development on a beach, but in this case there is no development, it’s just about whether the beach concerned near PE would be sensitive to vehicles,” Taylor explained.
In a hearing last month, the court did give permission for vehicles to be driven on the beach during the association’s National Masters Competition on January 31.
The vice-chairman said one of the reasons they had asked for exemption from the PE beach was because it is about a 40 km walk to get down to the beach. “At a beach like Sunday Surf near PE there is only one entrance at the mouth of the Sunday River and it a very long walk. With small beaches it is not a problem. The other factor is the security of our vehicles. Once we park our vehicles and walk a fair distance away from them there is a huge risk that they could be stolen or broken into. I’ve had my vehicle broken into numerous times,” he said.
Taylor said the association would probably have an EIA done. “It will be costly, but we are hoping the vehicle manufacturers may support us as this does affect them too,” he said. Taylor said they were still hopeful of a compromise in the law. “Maybe there is some technicality in the law that is wrong that could help us,” he added.
The court did not stipulate when judgment can be expected, but the association suspects they could hear something next week.
