City of Cape Town Backyard Essential Service Improvement Programme

Leading South African engineering consulting firm GIBB will bring light into the lives of thousands of informal settlers with the “Backyard Essential Service Improvement Programme”.

The initiative taken by the City of Cape Town (CCT) will see residents living in informal structures within the bounds of the CCT on council rental stock property receive essential services.

The programme began with a pilot project in the Factreton residential area where GIBB was appointed as the electrical consulting engineer responsible for the design and project management during the construction phase of the project.

The project involved the installation of electricity service connections to the informal backyard dwellings on the properties and the replacement of the backbone electricity distribution infrastructure.  (The pilot project included the installation of a communal toilet and a water standpipe on council rental properties by the CCT Water and Sanitation Department and the provision of refuse bins by the Solid Waste Management Department.)

“This was the first project of its kind in Cape Town and presented a set of unique challenges and required unconventional design solutions to ensure successful implementation,” explains GIBB project engineer, Phillip Jacobs.