Lack of funding offered as reason why Buttskop railway level crossing not functioning properly

CAPE TOWN - A lack of funding has been offered as a reason why the Buttskop railway level crossing in Blackheath is still not functioning properly and safely. 

That's where a scholar transport train crash resulted in the deaths of 10 children in 2010 and seven men, travelling to work in a bakkie, died in another train crash in 2018. 

Recently, former Western Cape Transport MEC, Robin Carlise, visited the site to check on improvements and found a makeshift control system where the booms and signals were not working. 

Mobility MMC, Rob Quintas said some work was underway.

"There is work that needs to be done and a substantial grade separation alternative has to be implemented. We have completed a detailed design required for the grade separation alternative and currently, the process requires expropriating the land from SANRAL for the construction of that. So, there's multiple stakeholders, I'm sure Robin would've mentioned that you would have known out some sense of great frustration all those years ago as MEC, we're working on PRASA infrastructure, SANRAL is involved as well."

Quintas said the project was initially supposed to be funded by the City of Cape Town, the Western Cape Government and PRASA.

"The Western Cape govenment and PRASA informed the city that they have no funding to contribute to the project and the city has now taken on the full responsibility of the costing of this, so we've had to look at how and where do we find that money and as a result we have pushed the project to sort of an outside timeline to a point where funding can be identified and prioritised, which is not going to take away funding for other commitments."