`Foul' on hockey field claim
2007-02-08
HIGH-PROFILE talks are underway regarding the future of La Rochelle High School’s hockey field in Breda Street in Paarl.
Four hundred displaced families lodged a land claim in 1995 and want the land returned to them.
The school, however, has indicated that it will not budge before an alternative site for a field is supplied.
The provincial Minister of Public Works and Transport, Marius Fransman, refuses to accept the demand for alternative facilities as condition for the transfer of the land.
The claimants, the majority of whom had owned property on and around the school’s hockey field, were forcibly removed from central Paarl with the Group Areas Act in the 1960s.
According to the chairman of La Rochelle’s governing body, Johan Visser, the school has no objection to the ground being transferred to the claimants.
“We are, however, concerned about the students losing the sportsgrounds conveniently located near the school.”
He argues that the field is used by several schools for hockey, athletics and cricket.
“We want an alternative site before the land is handed over to the claimants. There is available land and we want to negotiate. But as a last resort, we will oppose the matter in court.”
A meeting between Visser, Fransman and the Minister of Education, Cameron Dugmore, is being arranged.
“We will try to come to an agreement and have a memorandum of understanding signed,” Visser said.
Until now, Fransman has stuck to his guns.
“These people (the claimants) have waited for 30 years and longer for this land. I have given my department instructions to facilitate the speedy transfer by the Land Claims Commission.
“There are existing alternative facilities for hockey in Paarl. The Municipality has to make it available to the school.”
According to Moutie Richards, chairman of the committee representing the claimants, Fransman and Dugmore had assured him last year that they supported the claim in principle.
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