Cape Town acts to clean up historic garden

The Company’s Garden next to the Houses of Parliament has become a safer place for tourists and Cape Town residents thanks to a partnership between the City of Cape Town, the South African Police Service (SAPS) and Central City Improvement District.
The Company’s Garden was established in 1652 and is a top tourist attraction.
The increased security measures include a private security company hired by the City to patrol 24/7; CCID security officers and law enforcement officers regularly patrolling the precinct and Garden on foot, bicycle, motorbike, horse or vehicle; five overhead CCTV cameras in Government Avenue and another four cameras in the Garden itself; and the involvement of stakeholders such as the Iziko Museum and the Jewish Holocaust Centre.
“The City takes safety in the inner-city and in the Company’s Garden itself seriously, and has put a number of security measures in place to that end. City officials, security agency staff and partner organisations work together each day to protect visitors to the Company’s Garden and, to a large extent, succeed in this task,” Cape Town mayoral committee member for community services, Tandeka Gqada, said this week.
Although mugging of tourists and general harassment of pedestrians have caused concern, the city says most of the incidents in the Company’s Garden involve contraventions of “minor by-laws, such as loitering”.
“Our objective is to proactively prevent the occurrence of these misdemeanours so that people can enjoy incident-free visits to the Garden. We believe that by enforcing the basics we can ensure that more serious incidents do not occur. The essence of our strategy is based on vigilance, an approach which has been enormously successful in ensuring that the CBD is the safest in the country for living, visiting and working,” says Tasso Evangelinos, chief operational officer of the CCID.
The bollards at the top and bottom end of Government Avenue will remain in place for the safety of pedestrians, and will not impede security efforts, as security and emergency vehicles can enter the garden from Avenue Street.

The picture above was taken in about 1900 and shows Government Avenue with the Houses of Parliament on the left.