Integrated development planning (IDP) was introduced in the mid-1990s to force municipalities to adopt a coherent approach to development while involving citizens in decision-making. At its best, this approach would combine a top-down and bottom-up approach to development planning.
At the core of these plans are development corridors, which when done well can help redress SA’s apartheid spatial planning. Apartheid ensured that the majority lived far from where economic activity took place.
But like most things in life, the reality of how IDP corridors are implemented has diverged from the ideal. The history of road D489 — D721, which connects Cornfields to Thembalihle, two villages outside Estcourt in the upper Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal, is illustrative.
I grew up in Cornfields. What factors were considered in deciding that linking these two villages as a potential development corridor was the most transformative thing to do isn’t clear. No-one in Cornfields I have spoken to has the foggiest idea.
The following theory might shed some light:
- Preparing IDPs has become a box-ticking exercise, sucking all the development planning juice out of it. That’s why municipal officials just hire consultants to draft these plans, opening the door for them to copy and paste the plans from one town to the next, especially in small towns. It’s money for jam. Councils hardly ever read these thick IDP documents.
- Municipal officials and councillors pretend to consult citizens, which when combined with the fact that most citizens barely pay attention to these plans because they have far more pressing issues to deal with, such as putting food on the table, makes the entire thing a farce.
The effectiveness of development corridors as a tool for stitching up the country spatially by linking communities to economic activity or opportunities has thus been blunted.
Now, back to road D489 — D721. It was built and upgraded in parts more than 10 years ago. The two villages have no complementary economic base. Nor are there social or other reasons for daily travel between the two.
A guide on corridors published by the UK government explains that corridors are transport routes that evolve to facilitate an increasing range of social and economic development activities.
“They may evolve to an extent that enhances only the flow of goods and people (a transport corridor), or to an extent that supports trade (a trade corridor), or development of a particular sector of the economy (for example an agricultural corridor). They might evolve to an extent that supports wider social development and economic growth of a subnational region or cross-border region (that is a fully fledged economic corridor).”
An IDP document of the uThukela District Municipality, under which Cornfields and Thembalihle fall, speaks the same language, saying that corridors happen in different stages. “They carry the flows of people and trade between two points (origin and destination) and encourages nodal development at strategic point.
Mobility levels
“Corridor development as a spatial structuring element, and a tool for economic growth, seeks to create functional linkages between areas of higher thresholds (levels of support) and economic potential, with those that have insufficient thresholds. This will enable areas that are poorly serviced to be linked to areas of opportunity and benefit with higher thresholds.”
It adds that the development of corridors within its boundaries has been done based “on the levels of mobility and access routes, intensity of use and role in the regional spatial economy”.
UThukela’s IDP and that of the uMtshezi, one of the four constituent municipalities under uThukela, shed no light on the thinking behind the Cornfields-Thembalihle corridor. The uMtshezi municipality’s 2019/2020 IDP document describes the corridor as a major link between the two parallel secondary corridors.
It says the corridor has the potential “to improve access to Thembalihle and Cornfields” for reasons that aren’t explained. It describes the two villages as “isolated expansive rural settlements located on commercial farmlands”. But Cornfields is no longer hemmed in by commercial farmlands, not since the early 1990s.
UMtshezi then adds the corridor has “limited economic opportunities”. This admission points to poor reasoning behind the proposed Cornfields-Thembalihle corridor in the first place. That poor reasoning led to scarce funds being poured onto a road that serves no economic or social purpose, instead of other projects that could have changed the lives of the people of Cornfields and Thembalihle for the better.
Which reminds me of the title of an article on corridors written by two academics at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. It said: “The answer is: corridor development, but what is the question?” Clearly, the Cornfields-Thembalihle corridor was an answer to an unknown question.
• Sikhakhane, a former spokesperson for the finance minister, National Treasury and SA Reserve Bank, is editor of The Conversation Africa. He writes in his personal capacity.
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