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Mapped coastal access points include harbours, private launch sites, public launch sites, sites for beach access using off-road vehicles and pedestrian access. In addition, Each point has a reference pdf document which provides a description of each point, including provided facilities, concerns, presence of conflict, environmental degradation/damage or illegala activities etc.The project "Western Cape Provincial Coastal Access Assessment and Pilot Study" was commissioned by the Western Cape Government and involved the development of a Coastal Access Strategy and Plan (WC PCASP) as well as the development of a framework by-law which could be used to designate coastal access in terms of section 18 of ICMA in 2016/2017. The WC PCASP contained, amongst others, the requirement for the use of coastal access audit checklists to facilitate assessment of existing and historical access, recommend actions and prioritise funding as well as investigate the potential for provision of Universal Access. These checklists and resulting recommendations are intended to assist municipalities (both District and Local) to prioritise actions and therefore funding of coastal access and to approach management and provision of coastal access in a structured manner. The checklists and the framework by-law (developed in a parallel initiative) were, developed as desktop exercises without testing in the field. For this reason, the Western Cape Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (DEA&DP) wishes to have the auditing approach and the by-law tested in actual situations. This project will have a dual function of testing and improving the checklists and possibly the by-law but also providing valuable information for the planning of Coastal Access in the selected District.The scope of work of this project was to conduct audits of all coastal access sites along the Overberg District Coastline from Rooiels in the west to Cape Infanta in the east using the checklist from the WC-CASP as a basis. The audit aimedto assist Municipal planning and therefore focussedon Municipal land. Conservation areas werenoted and commented on where appropriate but werenot assessed in the same detail. It is important to note that the audit results represent a snapshot in time. They cannot uncover all details of all issues in a single site visit. Additional investigations may be required to provide more detail on findings of the audit.The lines depicting the zones and any points are used as a schematic representation to provide an overview and are not intended to be geospatially accurate. |