Durban has just six weeks left to choose whether to re-enter the international
Blue Flag beach quality scheme if it is to have any hope of reclaiming
and flying its lost flags in time for the 2010 World Cup.
Blue Flag national co-ordinator Allison Kelly said there was a lengthy
requalification period for beaches once flags were withdrawn, and the
deadline period to reapply would expire at the end of June.
Addressing members of the city branch of the SA Institute of Civil Engineers
in Durban on Tuesday night, Kelly said the earliest date when local beaches
could fly lost flags was November 2009 - just a few months before the
July 2010 World Cup, which was predicted to attract thousands of foreign
tourists to the city.
Durban still has one blue flag flying at Umhlanga's main beach, but several
other flags along the Golden Mile and other parts of the city have been
withdrawn, mainly because of failure to meet strict beach water quality
standards in line with World Health Organisation guidelines for safe swimming.
Some beaches lost their flags because of poor management of beach facilities.
Kelly gave no indication of whether the city had indicated a firm desire
to reapply for lost flags after threats by municipal manager Mike Sutcliffe
to withdraw entirely from Blue Flag and draw up its own quality scheme.
However, Kelly said she believed it was essential for Durban to restore
public confidence as quickly as possible after recent media exposure,
which had been "hugely detrimental" to the local tourism industry.
Despite heated criticism from Sutcliffe for her role in bringing the loss
of Blue Flag to public attention, Kelly said: "I don't know of a
single person who is not committed to turning around the problems in Durban."
Ideally, Kelly said, she hoped that Durban would be able to fly a continuous
line of these flags from the Umgeni River mouth to the harbour entrance
- although there were still major challenges ahead to address water quality
standards.
She was encouraged by reports from Durban water and sanitation chief Neil
Macleod about the steps being taken to prevent polluted stormwater from
flowing on to tourist beaches as well as a programme to decontaminate
polluted beach sand which was dredged from the harbour.
However, she warned that the time-scale to requalify for blue flags ahead
of the World Cup was "getting quite tight".
If Durban applied to regain its lost flags before the June 30 deadline,
each candidate beach would have to revert to "pilot status"
for at least a year, as from November 2008.
If these beaches consistently met water quality and other standards during
the one-year pilot status, the first reclaimed flags could only be flown
from November 2009.
Kelly also expressed concern that the media publicity about Durban water
quality problems could lead to the city's losing several world events,
such as the Mr Price Pro or the Beach Africa festival.
"What worries me hugely is the issue of public perception . . . as
perception is a very powerful tool. So we need to get public confidence
back as quickly as possible."
Kelly noted, however, that she continued to receive telephone and e-mail
queries about the issue - including recent e-mails from a large construction/development
company in Umhlanga.
She said that a 2004 study by the Council for Scientific and Industrial
Research suggested that the value of Blue Flag status at Margate beach
was somewhere between R19 million and R24 million a year.
Based on this calculation, the tourism loss for Durban could be extrapolated
to R100 million.
She also said blue flags were not only useful to attract foreign tourists,
since many domestic tourists appeared to choose Blue Flag beaches.
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