A team of expanded public works programme (EPWP) workers will be on duty full-time at the Rondebosch Common from November to help keep it clean.
The move has been welcomed by the Friends of the Rondebosch Common (FRC), which currently employs a gardener there three times a week.
Ward councillor Katherine Christie said she had asked for the workers to be at Rondebosch Common permanently to pick up litter, and the FRC gardener would guide them. “They won’t be weeding as that takes training and experience – discerning weeds from Cape fynbos,” she said.
Jane Turner, from the FRC, said: “Our gardener comes in three times a week and picks up, up to five bags of weeds a day, but you come back the next day and it’s littered again. It’s a bit of a catch-22 situation.”
Ms Christie said she had received complaints about street people who lit fires, defecated and littered on the common.
She said a mentally ill homeless man was among those who lived on the common and he had refused help.
“Loitering is no longer a by-law offence, hence people may sit around, lie down and sleep in any public open space. The FRC gardener has a direct line to our Ward 58 law enforcement officer should he have any concerns,” she said, adding that from what she had heard, none of the homeless people had caused any harm to those using the common.
