Left to rot — NMB metro scrambles to demolish long-abandoned Beachview Resort

For nearly two decades the Beachview Resort in Nelson Mandela Bay has stood as a slow-burning monument to municipal failure – a once-thriving coastal retreat allowed to disintegrate while warnings piled up and oversight collapsed.

Now, with its concrete frames buckling and vandals having stripped the buildings to skeletons, the metro has finally approved the resort’s demolition. But councillors insist the catastrophe was not inevitable – it was the product of inaction.

ACDP councillor Lance Grootboom says one of the first inspections took place as early as 2016 under the DA-led coalition government – one of the earliest official attempts to confront the resort’s accelerating decline.

“When we made that visit under mayor Athol Trollip, the chalets were still there,” he said. “They’d been vandalised, but they were intact. There were even toilets – only the roofs were missing.”

That inspection took place shortly after the municipality had taken over the management of the facility following a drowning the year before.

Before the Trollip administration was ousted, says Grootboom, councillors recommended strengthened security, a restoration plan and securing a new business partner because the private operator – identified in public documents as Isimilo Investment Pty (Ltd) – “was not doing its job”.

“We said security had to be in place to protect the site,” Grootboom said. “We also recommended partnering with another business to manage the resort.”

But security was later insourced – a move Grootboom believed would improve protection. Instead, vandalism intensified.

“It seems to me that insourcing caused even more problems. Now we’re left with a shell.”

DA councillor Jason Grobbelaar reported the resort as a problem building two years ago, citing safety hazards and by-law violations. On Friday, 5 December he said he welcomed the demolition, saying the site had deteriorated so badly that it should be “returned to nature”.

“Beachview is a fantastic area with breathtaking views, a lookout, braai facilities and a tidal pool,” he said. “But the infrastructure is unsafe. Walls are unstable, bricks are falling – imagine a child playing there. I welcome the demolition, but it needs to happen fast.”

The council’s decision follows a report by mayor Babalwa Lobishe detailing how the resort – envisioned as a major tourism hub – had deteriorated beyond any possibility of repair.

Warnings about Beachview’s structural dangers emerged years before the buildings began to hollow out.

Long-buried warnings

Red flags over the resort contract were raised nearly two decades ago in a damning forensic investigation – the Kabuso report – which was buried for years before a court forced its release.

In 2009, independent investigators Kabuso CC were appointed to examine land deals and major contracts entered into by the municipality between 2003 and 2009.

Beachview was among the transactions flagged, implicating both officials and private contractors. Kabuso finalised its report in early 2010, but instead of acting, local and provincial leaders kept it under wraps.

The probe began when Sicelo Gqobana was MEC for local government and traditional affairs. After he was moved to the health portfolio, his successor, Mlibo Qoboshiyane, inherited the findings.

In March 2011, Qoboshiyane sent the municipality a condensed version of the report, presenting it to the mayoral committee and demanding detailed responses.

He pressed the metro to explain whether it had moved to cancel the Isimilo lease, evict the company and recover a R422,182 grant from Isimilo’s directors and former mayor Nceba Faku. He also questioned the failure to reclaim a R200,000 performance guarantee and R100,000 worth of missing loose items.

The municipality submitted responses in May 2011, but Qoboshiyane deemed them “inadequate” and “failing to address all the issues raised”.

By June, he wrote to the mayor at the time, Zanoxolo Wayile, expressing concern about the “incomplete manner” in which the metro handled the findings. The municipality was given 30 days to respond properly.

In October 2011, after the City still had not produced detailed plans, Qoboshiyane escalated the matter to the council speaker. In the same month, Eastern Cape High Court Judge Duncan Zolani Dukada ordered the department to release the full report, ruling that its disclosure was firmly in the public interest.

Years later, in 2017, then-DA mayor and now ActionSA MP Trollip instructed the former city manager to act on six problem areas identified by Kabuso – an attempt to revive accountability that ultimately came too late to save Beachview.

Grootboom says attempts were made to hold officials implicated in the report criminally liable, but the government had changed and the officials had already left the institution.

A vision that never materialised

Located 31km from Gqeberha on a 17.2-hectare seaside tract, the resort was leased two decades ago to a private operator under a 40-year agreement that required upgrades to the ageing infrastructure. The plans were ambitious: redesigned public spaces, renovated chalets, entertainment facilities, a conference centre, a swimming pool and, eventually, a timeshare development.

But little of it materialised. Lobishe’s report, tabled at a council meeting on Thursday, 4 December, states that the private operator – Isimilo Investment Pty (Ltd) – failed to obtain environmental approvals, missed development deadlines and ultimately did no more than basic maintenance.

In 2015, the situation came to a head when a drowning prompted a municipal inspection that found a resort effectively abandoned by its operator. Officials found no lifeguards on duty, no warning signs about hazardous conditions, no electricity supply, no cleansing services, non-functional firefighting equipment, improperly registered security guards and visibly deteriorating buildings.

The City shut the resort immediately, restricted access and deployed temporary lifeguards. It requested a full inventory of municipal property – a list that was never provided. The inspection exposed clear breaches of the lease agreement and gave grounds for its cancellation.

Nearly a decade later, the deterioration has been severe. Buildings have been relentlessly stripped and vandalised over the years, and the metro’s roaming security patrols have failed to prevent ongoing intrusions. In 2024, the human settlements department issued a demolition certificate, clearing the way for the structures to be levelled.

The municipality is now preparing to shift the site’s future into private hands. After consultation with National Treasury’s Government Technical Advisory Centre in 2022, the City was advised that a public-private partnership would be the most viable model to revive and manage its resort assets – infrastructure that has become too costly for the municipality to restore or operate.

Memories of what was lost

When Daily Maverick visited Beachview Resort, the scene was one of neglect. People still spend summer days on the grounds, despite clear signs warning that the resort is closed and that no lifeguards are on duty. The ablution facilities were unusable, and the braai areas were in a disgraceful state of disrepair. A gate fastened with barbed wire did little to deter visitors, and a section of the boundary wall had been broken open to allow vehicles access. Youngsters swam in the tidal pool under adult supervision, while graffiti on the walls blamed former city officials for the resort’s decline. No visible security was present to enforce the rules.

Michael Voster (53) has visited the area since childhood and remembers camping with his family at Beachview Resort, which he says has drastically spiralled into decay since then.

“I can still hear the voices of families we camped with,” he said. “I probably stayed in every chalet, even the hotel that’s since been demolished. It was thriving – beautiful. It’s heart-wrenching to see it like this.”

He believes investment could restore the area’s economic potential.

“If it were restored to its original state, it could be a real drawcard. It’s phenomenal. It’s sad – very sad.”

Colette van Heerden (51) has visited the area for the past five years and watched the decline accelerate.

“In 2021, the little houses were still intact,” she said. “It escalated quickly. It’s a waste of a resource and destructive to nature. People want to enjoy this space – it shouldn’t be in this state.”

Urgency as holiday season approaches

Although no demolition date has been confirmed, on Friday Grobbelaar wrote to Dr Kithi Ngesi, acting director for sports, recreation, arts and culture, urging the process to be completed before the festive influx.

“We will receive hundreds, if not thousands, of visitors between 20 December and early January. I urge the institution to expedite the demolition, return the site to nature, and make it safe,” he said.

While the ACDP supports the demolition, Grootboom argues that the municipality allowed the situation to deteriorate far beyond necessity.

“That place could have been saved,” he said. “Our beaches are not enough for our residents. In the past, those beaches were vibrant; now they are nothing. We’re not opposed to the demolition, but it should never have reached this point. If the municipality had acted when it should have, all of this could have been avoided.” DM