The lack of effective public lighting plays a major role in creating unsafe areas where crime can thrive. Informal settlement residents are at risk due to the darkness many people must face when accessing public transport early in the morning and late at night.

Effective Public Lighting Campaign

Part of our Safety & Justice Programme

In 2016, the SJC started a campaign for effective public lighting to improve public safety in informal settlements. We obtained maps of public lighting in Khayelitsha and Nyanga. It was clear that these Black communities had been left in the dark by the City of Cape town.

Both the formal and informal areas of Khayelitsha, to this day, are lit almost entirely by high-mast lights. The apartheid government used these lights exclusively in townships to police and control Black communities.

The City of Cape town believes high-mast lights should be avoided because they cast deep and dark shadows, yet they continue to provide these lights only in Black townships.

In 2017 we made significant progress in this campaign. After we wrote to the mayoral committee member for energy, and engaged all councillors in the City through a public letter, Mayor Patricia de Lille committed R40 million to provide more lighting in Khayelitsha over the next three years. Although this amount will be insufficient to address the inequitable, apartheid-era allocation of public lighting, we will be closely monitoring the Mayor’s commitment while campaigning for effective public lighting in Black townships.

The lack of effective public lighting plays a major role in creating unsafe areas where crime can thrive. Informal settlement residents are at risk due to the darkness many people must face when accessing public transport early in the morning and late at night.

Link between lighting & violence

In September 2017, 11 residents of the Marikana informal settlement were murdered over a single weekend. The consequences of poor lighting on safety were tragically demonstrated in September 2017 when 11 residents of the Marikana informal settlement in Philippi East were murdered over a single weekend. The settlement is notoriously dangerous, poorly lit, and police are not prepared to patrol after dark for fear of their own safety. The SJC branches in Marikana organised a march to the SAPS Provincial Headquarters and the Civic Centre demanding better lighting and an equitable allocation of police personnel.