Charles Dagnall, Fish Hoek
I read Leigh Barrett’s letter of last week with great interest and must compliment her on some excellent suggestions for revamping Fish Hoek.
There have been many initiatives over the years to improve Fish Hoek’s Main Road, all to no avail. The most prominent move was, I think, inspired by AP Jones but also failed to gather momentum.
My belief is that we need a combination of sponsors with capital, council support and approval and ongoing publicity. I believe the Echo could supply the latter and be the catalyst for real change to Main Road which has the dubious reputation of being the ugliest main road in Cape Town.
In addition to Leigh Barrett’s ideas, the Echo, with its technical expertise could produce a blueprint for the following idea:
Photograph many of the buildings in the main road.
Appoint a colour design expert to view the buildings and create a colour palate to enhance the exteriors. This could be two tone effects with windows, buttresses etc which could totally transform their look. Even an unsightly building can be turned from an ugly duckling to a swan with clever paint effects.
Overlay the paint effects onto the existing buildings and approach the owners to consider action for change.
Council could subsidise the cost to some extent and maybe other sponsors could come aboard to help.
“Fabulous Fish Hoek” could then really live up to its claim.
