The City of Cape Town’s Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements, Councillor Malusi Booi, the Brickles family and officials in the Human Settlements Directorate celebrated the restitution of the Brickles family’s 4 798m2 piece of land in Elfindale. In terms of the restitution programme, the City’s role is to investigate and consider all formal claims that have been submitted on land owned by the City.

The late Mr Kenneth Brickles and his brother Eric Brickles lodged the land claim on behalf of their late father, Mr Walter Brickles for the restitution of land rights on 26 March 1997. After 25 years, the land has been restored to the family.

‘On behalf of the Brickles family, we are delighted that our family’s land has been restored. After many years, we are grateful and we look forward to the future,’ said Gregory Brickles, who spoke on behalf of the family.

‘It is a true honour for the City to celebrate the restitution of the land with the Brickles family. We remain committed to enabling redress and to finalising all land claims as quickly as possible so that we give land back to the rightful owners. On behalf of the City, we wish the claimants all the best with their plans and we look forward to seeing them in the future.

‘The dispossession of the land was done in accordance with the racially-based Group Areas Act, which was developed and used by the apartheid government to create spatial divides thereby robbing people of colour of their property and tenure rights. Today, we are pleased to see the land return to the Brickles family.

‘The City has helped as much as it can to expedite the process and we continue to call on national government to assist beneficiaries as quickly as possible. We thank all who have made this day possible and we wish the family all the very best for the future,’ said Councillor Booi.

Source: City Of Cape Town