Speech by Brett Herron, GOOD Secretary-General & Member of the Western Cape Parliament. Note to editor: This speech was delivered by GOOD Secretary-General & Member of the Western Cape Parliament Brett Herron during today’s interpellation mini-debate on housing plans for Wingfield informal settlement
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I have been attending the public engagements on the planning process for the packaging of the Tafelberg School site for a housing and commercial development. The most recent presentation of the 353-on-Main project, as it is now called, made it clear that if all goes according to schedule the planning applications required to build this development would only commence in March 2026.
If we are optimistic, it will be 2030 before we see a resident move into social housing on that site. This means that it would have taken this government 20 years from when the site first became identified for social housing ‘til when that social housing is actually delivered. We know that 20 years is as a direct result of dogmatic anti-poor ideology that dominates the Democratic Alliance leadership.
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The name of South Africa’s national free basic housing programme “Breaking New Ground” is deeply ironic in the Western Cape. Very little “ground” has in fact been broken when it comes to affordable housing in Cape Town and across the province. According to the Minister of Infrastructure, a resident of Drakenstein has been waiting 62 years for a home. Delivery numbers remain dismal, with only 3,046 houses were built in the last financial year. At that rate, it will take over 220 years to clear the backlog.
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This government is acting less like a serious administration and more like Hollywood in a creativity crisis. Instead of producing bold, new projects, we just get endless reboots of the same tired story. This very same piece of land, Founders Garden, was announced for development in 2010 as part of the Cape Town Central City Regeneration Programme. Then it was re-announced in 2016 for social housing. And again in 2019, Cabinet approved its release. Now here we are in 2025, and suddenly we’re expected to stand, clap, and act like this is a blockbuster premiere. Why, after years of fanfare, photo-ops and recycled announcements, has there been no concrete progress on delivering homes for the people who need them?
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After years of struggle and public pressure, there are encouraging signs that the Western Cape Government (WCG) is finally listening. At a follow-up public meeting held in Sea Point last night, consultants appointed by the WCG presented revised concept proposals for the redevelopment of the Tafelberg School site, now quietly renamed “353-on-Main.” These new plans reflect a shift in response to public calls for more social and affordable housing.
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The Western Cape Government has spent over half a billion rand on office space for the Western Cape Education Department (WCED),yet it still has no permanent headquarters. This alarming misuse of public funds was revealed in written responses to GOOD by current Infrastructure MEC Tertuis Simmers and former MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela, following parliamentary questions submitted in November 2020, and again in April and June 2025.
Gun violence continues to plague the Western Cape, and the City of Cape Town remains disturbingly unprepared, and seemingly unwilling, to confront the root causes of the crisis. In June, seven people were gunned down in a mass shooting at a home in the Kanana Informal Settlement, Gugulethu. In a separate incident in White City, Nyanga, two men were murdered in cold blood. Just days earlier, the bodies of three men were discovered in Samora Machel. These are not isolated incidents, they are symptoms of a deepening urban crisis rooted in inequality, spatial injustice, and the persistent failure of leadership.
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The Western Cape’s housing backlog now sits at a staggering 688,824 households and is growing. Yet, the answers received from Infrastructure MEC Tertuis Simmers expose a system so dysfunctional that it might as well not exist. When asked how long the top ten applicants in each municipality have been waiting, the answers are devastating; many have waited more than 30 years. One individual has been on the list for over 62 years.
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A week ago, I stood here and welcomed the launch of 353-on-Main, the former Tafelberg site. It’s an important moment. It proves that public land can serve the public good. That affordable housing in well-located areas is not a dream, it’s entirely possible. But it also proves something else: that progress only happens when communities fight for it. Because this project wasn’t a gift. It was the result of tireless organising, legal battles, and public pressure.
That’s why I stand here again today, not just to acknowledge what was done, but to ask: why is this the exception, not the norm?
Across this province, thousands of people live on publicly owned land, in informal settlements that have existed for years. In 2023, this government managed to upgrade just one of them. One.
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Let me paint you a picture. You work, and work hard, for fifty years. You contribute to this country, raise a family, pay your taxes, and do your part. Retirement comes, and like many South Africans, life hasn’t been easy. You can’t afford luxury, but you’re looking for peace, safety, and dignity. So, you search for affordable elderly care. Instead, you end up in a homeless shelter, one that highlights its frail care facility. This isn’t the retirement you dreamed of, but it’s all you could afford. But that doesn’t mean you signed up for a nightmare.
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