Initiative Clean-up of Settlers Square and the old Tennis Courts
The organizers of the last Bathurst Country Affair 2025 cleaned up the piece of land opposite the Pig & Whistle in August 2025 and now in November 2025 the same team who work so hard on the Kew Gardens are tackling the clean-up of the old Tennis Courts as well.
Initiative Kew Gardens
Progress as of 23rd November 2025 from Jax: Kew gardens will open on 7 December2025 Phase one is complete, together with 5 cleared trails. The design and work was undertaken by the core team
– Jax Harris – Garden – Tudi Gaoway – Trails
– Roger Phillips – Alien clearing – Bonani Ntakumba – Head Gardener
– Dougie Shaw – Trailblazer
Many residents have also helped in the gardens: Guy Grinter, Anthony, Rose, Martin, Mandi,: Pete and Judy, Tracey Lynham, Nila, Tracey and Julia. If I left anyone out, it was not intentional.
I cannot name all the village donors who gave us plants, mulch, wood chips, but every week there were plants to be put in on Thursdays. We are so grateful, thank you Bathurst.
Special thanks to Sue Waugh from Sunshine Coast Tourism for signage and Michelle Rowley for facilitating and storing signs. Thanks to Sune for Bathurst Chronical coverage. Thanks to Russell for support and being a drop off point for plants. Evonne Ghemo for letting us use the most important Tree Puller.
Some points to note: No direct money was ever taken to build the garden.
There are no taps in the garden, it is a water wise space.
Tanya Schenk has kindly offered to help promote the opening day.
In closing I would like to say we had the best team ever and I could not have had a better partner than Tudi, a force of womanhood.
Progress as of 29th June 2025: The 6ha piece of land that this group is busy clearing of aliens that had taken over. A 2.6 km walking trail has been cleared along the stream. It was originally a park space with lawn that was mowed by a local man called Wally Kew. There will be a brief history put in the garden once the signage goes up. It is still very much Work in progress, as we have only now started planting indigenous aloes etc. Anyone is welcome to join us working on Thursday or to contact Tudi on +27 81 393 0805, in order to see the trail. Expect to open 1st December 2025.
Bathurst’s newest project, an enormous effort of people from our village to uplift our surroundings and re-introduce Kew Gardens, has started in April 2025.
The letter from BR&RA to the Municipality in this respect can be viewed here.
Bathurst Pineapple Music Fest 
Summerhill had agreed to allow BR&RA to hold a Pineapple festival in order to raise some funds for a good cause in Bathurst. The subsequent Bathurst Pineapple Music Fest was held on 22nd/23rd February 2025. Although the event was a success, there were not enough visitors attending in order to raise enough funds to cover more than the various costs that arose. Therefore BR&RA was not in a position to allocate money to a good cause this year.
However, it was still successful enough that it was decided to hold this event annually at the end of February.
See more about this year’s event here.
The Talk of the Town covered this year’s event with a nice and encouraging article.
See TotT article here.
Recycling in Bathurst
Afrikka Recycling in PA, near Settlers’ Park, is still operating, but is no longer accepting drop-offs from members of the public at that site. Bathurst residents’ recycling is still sorted by waste-pickers at the Bathurst dump and collected by Afrikka Recycling from there when there is enough for an 8-ton truck.
To help make waste-pickers’ lives easier, please put your recycling in clear plastic bags, which you can put out with your rubbish. At the moment, waste-pickers collect and sell cardboard, white paper, and all kinds of clean plastic including old chairs and buckets.
Clare Rothwell will update this with information on other recyclables when available.
Bathurst Agricultural Museum
With the closure of the Kowie museum, the Bathurst Agricultural Museum is now in the process to receive all the artefacts from Port Alfred. This has made a huge difference to our museum which has been revamped and is now really looking good. See article under Betty Bakhanyo’s column.
Bathurst clean-up
Today 20th May 2024 a group of Bathurstian volunteers cut and cleaned up the verge along Kowie Road from the centre to the co-op. Well done to all the participants and thank you!
Walkway along the Bathurst River
Members of the community have started to clear a walkway along the Bathurst stream from undergrowth and marked it with plastic strip markers along the trees. This path can now be walked single file, but only with good shoes and by experiences hikers, as it is not easy to navigate in places. But the beauty of the indigenous bush along the stream can be enjoyed by nature lovers and walking enthusiasts.
Bathurst Soup Kitchen
Zoleka Marais’s dream is to take care of the Bathurst 
farming community where people are dependent on seasonal employment and social grants. There are many cases of HIV/AIDS, poverty, malnutrition, substance abuse, illiteracy and a lack of recreational activities for children. A group of unemployed woman took it upon themselves to be the agents of change in their community and started Valley Of Hope Soup Kitchen in 2010. It was registered in 2016 as a Non-Profit organization. They cook with wood and 3 legged pots to serve hot food to vulnerable, disabled and neglected children, sick and hungry people. Their aim is to better the lives of the poor and restore human dignity with 2 simple meals a week in Nolukhanyo. Now Zoleka is the only one left all by herself out of the 5 woman who started the soup kitchen.
Ndlambe municipality donate food parcels quartely, Bathurst village send meat parcel for Christmas every year organised by Mary Riley and Port Alfred Hospice provide clothing occasionally.
The St John s church has helped her over the past +/- 5 years by donating dried food every week. They also provide them with knitted blankets and beanies etc. every winter plus old
clothes and linen when they receive donations. They have provided them with building materials in the hope to get the soup kitchen their own building.
They also fenced a piece of ground for a vegetable garden. However, in the meantime the old man who worked it has died, so it is not fully used at present. In addition, St. John’s have provided building materials to erect their own soup kitchen building, but this also still needs to be built.
Every year St John s collects money for sweets biscuits fruit and cooldrink for a Christmas party for the kids. Last year 65 kids arrived!
St Paul s in Port Alfred sends fresh vegetables and toys when they receive donations of these and Maryna from St. John’s Church delivers the groceries etc. every week. Should you wish to contact Zoleka, you can do so on 073-296-3627
BR&RA 2023 – 2024 Achievements, Progress and the Future
Our most notable achievement this year – a new website www.brra.org.za – is due entirely to the efforts of two of our committee members, Maya Stricker and Warwick Lewarne. Its aim is to give everyone easy access to everything that’s on in Bathurst, what has been achieved and what is in progress.
For the rest, Bathurst is full of challenges, and we’re only beginning to make progress with them.
- There’s our burnt out town hall, where we’re hoping that 2024 will bring a creative decision about its future as well as some action.
- Our rubbish dump often spontaneously combusts and has killed several cattle because of blown-about plastic, so we’re hoping to arrive at a solution in collaboration with the municipality.
- Bathurst has the biggest commonage in the country, but its use is fairly chaotic and also wasteful, so we’re taking action to improve the situation, again in collaboration with the municiplaity. We’ve tasked Monty Roodt with this giant challenge.
- Gravel roads both in the village and the township are in need of serious attention, resurfacing, improved drainage, and in some cases, paving. Anyone game to take on the co-ordination of this project is invited to contact Elizabeth Milne via whatsapp on 065 730 0473.
- We have also begun to strengthen relationships between Bathurst village and the township, and to explore ways in which we may be able to support youth development and the creation of sustainable livelihood opportunities.
We’re hoping that 2024 will bring a volunteer to co-ordinate efforts to eradicate invasive alien vegetation in and around the village. And also that we can revive the formerly annual pineapple festival. We see Bathurst developing further as a destination to which people come to do things, be it hiking, riding, birding, celebrating local artists, or attending talks, presentations, concerts and festivals of all kinds. Whatever our very creative community can dream up.
The latest Bathurst community initiative is a new Neighbourhood Watch. It is a very necessary response to crime in our community, fully supported but not led by BR&RA. For information, contact Gabby Serfontein via whatsapp on 063 425 3713.
Burnt-out Town Hall
April – June 2024: BR&RA is running workshops to explore possible re-purposing of the burnt-out Town hall site with various groups of 6 – 10 people. Reuslts of these workshops will then presented to Ndlambe municipality,
Many Bathurstians are concerned that something constructive should happen to the burnt-out town hall. To update locals on the status quo and to canvas Village opinion about this, a meeting was held on 20 Sept 2023. It was resolved that BR&RA would elicit additional information from the municipality as soon as possible.
After having submitted the PAIA application, we got an initial response from the municipality, namely
– Sregistry23100915190 – BH HALL – FIRE MANAGER REPORT
– BH HALL – NOTICE 072 2022 – BH HALL – SAPS FORENSIC REPORT
– BH HALL – VIAPLAN REPORT
We are going to get yet more documents from Ndlambe Financial Services on the history of the burnt-out hall, which will be made available as and when we receive them. Any BR&RA member may request to view these documents by sending us a mail via the contact form on the BR&RA website.
A request has also been made by the Ward 5 Councillor for a formal public participation process on the future of the ruin/site. As of 10th January 2024 we have not yet received any notification from Ndlambe municipality as to when the statutorily required public participation process will take place in order to allow planning of a way forward.
Road Network
2023: Clean-up of Kowie Road: for details, check under Road Network & Water. Please click here.
Water supply
Municipal water has been a big issue in our community, as it has been very unreliable in recent years. During 2019 the water supply from Golden Ridge dam was closed due to the fact, that there was not enough water in the drought conditions. Despite the Municipality’s efforts to pump water from the Lushington river, water supply remained erratic or brackish. Unfortunately, during the dam closure the cable from Eskom to the pump house was stolen.
Gavin Came and Patrick Grafton approached the Director of Infrastructure of the Ndlambe municipality and outlined the relative advantage of water supply from the Golden Ridge dam compared with transport of water in tankers to Nolukhanyo and the pumping water from the Lushington River.
The Municipality agreed to allow the Bathurst community to carry out the replacement of the cable. Patrick Grafton organised a crew to carry out the work and the cable was finally replaced during May 2023. It then became apparent that some valves and parts also needed to be replaced. The Municipality has ordered these parts on 6th June 2023.
Street Lights
All street lights had stopped working over a period of time. Unfortunately the municipality did not repair or replace them, and so Gavin Came asked Patrick Grafton whether he could look at the problem. Patrick found that most lights needed to have their switches repaired and he carried out these repairs. Residents can now happily enjoy street lights again on most of the main road through Bathurst.
Electricity
There used to be frequent electricity outages in Bathurst (besides load shedding) when the wind blew and damaged power lines that were entangled in trees. Patrick Grafton took the initiative to organise funding from the community (which donated R40 000) and contracted professional tree fellers who cut the cables free of the branches. According to the local Eskom representative, outages in Bathurst Village are down by 80%.
A whatsapp group called Electricity has been created specificallly for Bathurst. Should you like to join this group, click here.