June and July have been particularly busy months for the CRA and its volunteers. We are now well into the thick of winter, although spring will be upon us before we know it. This newsletter highlights some of the practical work taking place across our neighbourhood, together with the considerable activity happening behind the scenes.
Short on time? Read the two-minute version here: https://cra.org.za/june-july-newsletter-tldr/
New benches and platforms at the Blue Bridge
Residents and visitors may have noticed the new benches and professionally constructed platforms near the Blue Bridge.
This was a CRA-led initiative made possible through sponsorship from Fine & Country The Parks and Dry Dock Liquor together with the generosity of other benefactors, some of whom have chosen to remain anonymous.
The benches were installed in memory of Martin Williams and in recognition of the beautiful natural environment in which we are fortunate to live.
They were not simply placed into the dirt. Before any work could begin, CRA volunteers spent considerable time engaging with Johannesburg City Parks and navigating the necessary approval processes.
Once approval was obtained, the CRA appointed a professional builder who assists us with other community projects to construct stable and durable platforms beneath the benches. This ensures that they remain level, secure and usable through changing weather conditions for many years to come.
We extend our sincere thanks to everyone who helped create a lasting and useful addition to this special part of our neighbourhood.
Friends of Delta: practical action since 2023
Friends of Delta was founded in spring 2023 by a small group of residents from the suburbs surrounding Delta Park. They came together with a shared objective: to restore, protect and improve one of Johannesburg’s most valuable green spaces through practical and sustained community action. What began as a resident-led effort to improve safety, repair infrastructure, report environmental concerns, coordinate security and care for the park has grown into a broad and active collaborative initiative.
This work is not undertaken by the CRA alone. Friends of Delta depends on effective cooperation between the CRA, committed residents and important partners working within the park. These include Bubele Africa, whose teams undertake substantial practical maintenance and clearing work; Jozi Trails, which contributes to the care and continued use of the park’s trail network; and residents such as Shirley Tebutt, whose sustained involvement, local knowledge and commitment have made a meaningful contribution to the progress achieved.
The CRA’s role is to help bring these efforts together by supporting coordination, raising and administering funds, assisting with equipment and contractors, engaging public authorities and using its broader civic and escalation networks where necessary.
Friends of Delta now operates under the CRA, with all park-related donations and expenditure ring-fenced specifically for Delta Park projects and operations. This provides stronger governance, financial transparency and coordination while preserving Friends of Delta as a collaborative programme for everyone who uses and values the park—not only residents living within the CRA’s formal boundaries.
During June and July, the various Delta Park WhatsApp groups were consolidated into the dedicated Friends of Delta WhatsApp community, which now includes more than 200 participants.
This is an open community for residents and park users both within and beyond the CRA’s formal area.Delta Park serves a much wider community than the surrounding CRA neighbourhoods alone. People come from across Johannesburg to walk, run, cycle, exercise their dogs, visit the bird sanctuary and spend time with their families.
The CRA has demonstrated that it can work effectively with its partners in the park and turn community concern into practical action. It therefore made sense to create a dedicated Friends of Delta platform through which everyone who values the park can receive updates, contribute ideas and support the work.
The separate Friends of Delta community also allows us to preserve the limited space within the CRA’s main community WhatsApp group for residents living within the CRA area.
Click here to join the Friends of Delta WhatsApp community
A regular security presence
Friends of Delta helps fund a private security team that conducts regular patrols throughout the park, as do our neighbours in Parkhurst and Victory Park in conjunction with CAP.
The team monitors problem areas, reports damage and unlawful activity, discourages unauthorised structures and encampments, removes waste and works with residents and the relevant authorities when further intervention is required.
This visible and consistent presence is an important part of ensuring that emerging problems are identified and addressed before they become entrenched.
Protecting the Florence Bloom Bird Sanctuary
In October 2023, more than 50 people were living within the Florence Bloom Bird Sanctuary, with several informal structures established inside this important conservation area. Friends of Delta helped repair and secure the sanctuary fencing and worked with stakeholders to ensure that sustained attention was given to the unlawful occupation.
Today, there are no informal structures inside the sanctuary.
The sanctuary once again provides a safer and better-protected habitat for its wildlife, including Long-crested Eagles, Black Sparrowhawks and many other bird species.
Removing accumulated waste
Friends of Delta and its supporters have removed at least 15 four-ton truckloads of rubbish and accumulated material from the park. This has included general refuse, material collected for informal recycling, damaged appliances, stripped electrical equipment and stolen infrastructure. In addition to these major clean-ups, the security team has removed at least one bakkie load of rubbish from Delta Park each week since October 2023.
Keeping the park visible and usable
Working with partners including Bubele Africa, Jozi Trails and committed residents, Friends of Delta supports the cutting back of overgrown vegetation in priority areas, the management of invasive alien vegetation, trail maintenance, urgent repairs, early intervention where unlawful structures begin to emerge and the continuing protection of the bird sanctuary.
This work includes funding and purchasing the tools, protective equipment, brush-cutter consumables and other operational items needed to keep practical maintenance work going.
The improvement is visible.
Delta Park is cleaner. Problem areas are better monitored. Large volumes of waste have been removed. Heavily overgrown areas have been opened up. The sanctuary is better protected, and there is a greater security presence throughout the park.
There remains a great deal to do, but the progress demonstrates what is possible when a community moves beyond simply reporting problems and actively helps to solve them.
You do not need to live within the CRA area to support Friends of Delta. If you walk, run, cycle, visit with your family, enjoy the bird sanctuary or simply value the park, you can contribute from R50 per month—or choose your own contribution amount.
Every contribution is used solely for the upkeep, protection and improvement of Delta Park.
Support Friends of Delta: https://cra.org.za/friends-of-delta/
Rapid action to protect the Florence Bloom Bird Sanctuary
The need for continued vigilance was demonstrated again recently when a significant breach occurred in the perimeter fence of the Florence Bloom Bird Sanctuary. The breach created an immediate vulnerability, and unlawful activity began taking place inside the sanctuary. The CRA mobilised within approximately 48 hours, appointed a contractor and arranged for professional repairs at a cost of approximately R13,000.
Once access controls fail and unlawful activity becomes established, the consequences can quickly become more serious and far more expensive to reverse.
The rapid repair, together with the Friends of Delta security presence, the Delta operations team and the CRA’s wider safety and stakeholder initiatives, has helped ensure that neither the park nor the sanctuary is allowed to slide back into disorder.
This intervention is a reminder that the progress made since 2023 cannot be taken for granted. Protecting Delta Park requires constant attention, early action and reliable funding.
Refreshed cooperation with Parkview CPF, SAPS and the City
A central part of the CRA’s refreshed strategy is to work more effectively through capable existing stakeholder structures rather than attempting to solve every problem independently. During June and July, CRA committee members worked hard to refresh and re-establish a meaningful working relationship with the Parkview Community Policing Forum.
This led to a successful joint operation involving:
- CRA representatives and residents;
- the Friends of Delta operations team;
- residents from Craighall Park and Blairgowrie;
- Parkview CPF members and executive committee members; and
- SAPS.
The operation focused on current problem areas, including the Rattray weir and unlawful activity and occupation behind Delta Café.
By bringing residents, the CPF and SAPS into the affected areas together, the operation allowed the problems to be assessed directly and improved communication between those experiencing the issues and those with the authority and operational capacity to respond.
Together with the CRA’s other reporting initiatives and escalation channels, this work contributed to a further operation involving the City’s Citizen Relationship and Urban Management unit, or CRUM, during the second week of July.
This was an important and positive outcome. It demonstrates that persistent reporting, direct engagement and coordinated stakeholder action can produce practical results.
Residents who would like to learn more about Parkview CPF, become involved in its work or volunteer in relation to community safety operations are invited to contact the CRA at admin@cra.org.za.
Click here to follow the Parkview CPF WhatsApp Channel
Learning from neighbouring residents’ associations
The CRA does not operate in isolation. CRA representatives recently attended the annual general meetings of the Greenside Residents Association and the Parkview Residents Association. These organisations face many of the same challenges that we do, including municipal service-delivery failures, public-space management, community safety, resident participation and long-term organisational sustainability. These engagements allow us to compare approaches, exchange practical ideas and learn from what has worked—and what has not worked—in neighbouring communities.
Residents’ associations should not repeatedly attempt to solve identical problems independently. By sharing experience and building constructive relationships, we become more effective and avoid continually reinventing the wheel.
Contributing to wider civil society through JoburgCAN
The CRA is a founding affiliate of JoburgCAN, a broader civic network that brings together residents’ associations and civil-society organisations seeking improved accountability and municipal governance across Johannesburg.
During the final week of July, the CRA presented at a JoburgCAN civil-society engagement on town-planning matters and some of the practical challenges being experienced at neighbourhood level.
This allowed us to share our insights and experience with other like-minded residents’ associations and civic organisations while contributing to a wider discussion about planning enforcement, municipal accountability and the role of organised communities.
Our involvement in JoburgCAN gives the CRA access to a broader network of experience, expertise and escalation channels. It also allows lessons learned in our neighbourhood to contribute to wider civic action across Johannesburg.
Professionalising the CRA
The visible improvements in our public spaces are being matched by significant progress within the CRA itself. Our previous chairperson did an excellent job of bringing the CRA back up to speed and establishing renewed momentum within the organisation. The current committee has continued building on that foundation.
The CRA’s financial records have now been brought fully up to date. The outstanding audited financial statements have been prepared, and the organisation’s tax returns are up to date.
This provides the financial and administrative foundation required for the CRA’s intended registration as a public benefit organisation, together with the longer-term pathway towards obtaining Section 18A approval.
Section 18A status would, subject to the relevant approvals and requirements, enable qualifying donations to be supported by tax-deductible receipts. This could significantly improve our ability to attract individual, corporate and institutional funding for approved public-benefit activities.
The CRA’s wider professionalisation also includes:
- an improved website;
- updated POPIA-aligned privacy principles and policies;
- stronger protection and management of residents’ information;
- current audited financial statements and tax returns;
- clearer governance and administrative processes;
- improved programme and impact reporting; and
- more structured membership, payment and communication systems.
Our area is home to many experienced and highly skilled people, and the CRA benefits enormously from volunteers who contribute professional expertise from their respective fields.
The CRA also works with public authorities, private businesses, professional advisers, donors, residents’ associations and wider civil-society organisations. It must therefore be capable of engaging these stakeholders credibly and meeting appropriate standards of governance, accountability and transparency.
Residents are encouraged to visit our improved website and see the progress being made.
Visit the CRA website: https://cra.org.za/
We would love you to join us
The CRA serves approximately 3,000 households, but currently has only around 400 paying subscribers.
A relatively small group of residents, businesses and volunteers is therefore funding and supporting work that benefits the wider community. That is not sustainable indefinitely.
CRA volunteers contribute substantial amounts of personal time, professional expertise and practical assistance without payment. The projects, interventions, administration, stakeholder engagement and public-space work described in this newsletter also require reliable financial support. We therefore strongly encourage every household that benefits from the CRA’s work to become a member and contribute.
The CRA offers several membership and contribution options for individuals, pensioners, complex residents, businesses, residential complexes and those who would like to contribute more. Please visit our membership page and select the option that best suits you.
The CRA is also migrating its membership administration from PayFast to PayStack. If you haven’t yet moved across, please visit our membership page (link below) and sign up using the new PayStack system. Send us an email if you need us to cancel your old PayFast subscription.
View the membership options or move to Paystack: https://cra.org.za/join/
If you are not yet convinced by what the CRA does, please get in touch with us. Any of our committee members would gladly take you through the work of the association, the projects underway and the value being delivered to the community.
We would also love to hear from residents who have ideas, projects or community concerns that they believe the CRA should consider.
Share an initiative or contact the CRA: admin@cra.org.za
Warm regards,
The CRA Committee