Drakensberg Cable Car

I'm pretty sure they were talking about finding an operator when they initially put the notice out. In my mind that would imply that it won't be state run.

It surely will have to be state funded (well the construction anyway), R500m capital outlay (excluding working capital and other "hidden" costs) is tough to obtain and won't be done without heavy studies being done by the businessperson(s) in question. If it isn't funded by state then I really doubt the project would ever get underway.

For a relatively risky business such as this one an investor would usually require a rate of return of 25-33% p.a. - over the past 5 years SATRIX top 40 has averaged around 15% for a relatively low risk equity basket - the profit from operations would have to be stabilising around R75m profit per year (after NPV-ing for inflation) just to match SATRIX top 40. At R300 per ticket even if the costs where R0 to run the operation and the entity and associated dividends were tax exempt they would need 250 000 full price admissions just to make the required return on investment (408 497 if we account for income tax at 28% and dividend tax at 15%). The numbers really don't make sense. Hence I assume it must be constructed by state and rented at a token amount (e.g. R5000 p.m.) to the operator.

I've been sharing this blurb on Facebook and on any public site I can find. I encourage others to do the same:

Please everyone read through the article below, which provides some very important insights into what is happening regarding the Drakensberg cableway proposal. If this gets approved it could risk our Drakensberg's World Heritage status. There is major concern at the haste in which this project is being pushed through. We need EVERYONE's help to get the word out there this week while meetings are in progress.
www.thegreentimes.co.za/stories/vulnerable-people/item/2263-community-in-the-gap-talking-for-nature

Stay up to date by checking in on this link:
www.vertical-endeavour.com/forum/14-drakensberg-general/55316-drakensberg-cable-car.html

Looks like another white elephant funded by the tax payer's money.

Just came across this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirates_Air_Line_%28gondola_lift%29

The most expensive cableway ever built is in London. It cost roughly £60 million to build, over half of which was paid by Emirates as a sponsorship and for naming rights, and critics say the £4.30 ticket fee is too expensive for it to be practical for locals to use. Meanwhile our £29 million with proposed tickets of £21 is supposed to be appealing because locals can use it instead of walking up/down the passes.

Serious tribe wrote:
The engineering report mentioned 400-500 people per hour in each direction. So effectively, that is 400-500 people who would have paid, per hour. That would be 3200 per day, 96 000 people per month and 1 152 000 people per year.

Using ST's figures, let's compare with the Cape Town Cable Way 2013 annual report figures. The annual report is found here:
tablemountain.net/images/uploads/18284_TM_Annual_Report_2013_Flipping_Brochureindd_1_1.pdf
and notes that the last operating year drew a record crowd of 856 000.

The Drakensberg cable way is therefore being scoped on 34% more ticket sales than Table Mountain.
We all know that Table Mountain is within the city, surrounded by tourist attractions (beaches, Waterfront and so on) and that Table Mountain is hugely accessible. The Drakensberg is remote, not in a city and has no other key draw card within tens of kilometers. The numbers scoped for the Drakensberg mean only one thing: the Cable Way is not viable.

The only money foolish enough to invest in the Drakensberg Cable Way is government money. Someone should tell the people of the Mnweni that the government seems to want to spend its money on fancy stuff for foreigners. So much for housing, health and education.

Remember that the 400-500 people is at peak time, e.g. 23 December and its a clear windless sunny day, everyone staying within 100km hypothetically gets in their car to go up. Even on such a day they would probably not be at full capacity for the entire day, just part of it.

When I went up Table Mountain in 2003 it was a beautiful clear day in the middle of winter. Not a cloud in the sky, just a gentle wind, no haze or anything (there were quite a few Cape Tonians going up with us). Going up at about 9AM the cablecar wasn't completely full.

Just contacted 50/50 and Carte Blanche and provided a link to this thread as starting point for possible inverstigations:

Good day

As you are probably aware, there is a proposed Drakensberg Cableway that is gathering momentum at the moment.

The feasability studies indicate that for this to be profitable, the cableway would have to support traffic numbers that are higher than is experienced in Cape Town. It is aimed at a thin slice of rural land just outside of the World Heritage Site. Land that contains thousands of San rock art paintings, endemic species of fauna and flora and that falls within the most significant water catchment areas in South Africa. The interests of the local people such as the aMazizi and aMangwane, who revere these mountains as sacred, are being steamrollered by the KZN Tourism Department, and other interested parties are not being duely consulted. This project will prevent the planned inclusion of this piece of land into the Heritage Site. A white elephant of distasterous proportions.

Please investigate the information in the link below as this project cannot go ahead and cannot possibly work if it did, leaving nothing but a scar on one of the most pristine and unique environments in the world. The thread posted below contains news articles, links to tender documents, feasibility studies, magazine articles, comments of interested parties and a wealth of information for you to follow up on.

Please help...

www.vertical-endeavour.com/forum/14-drakensberg-general/55316-drakensberg-cable-car.html?limitstart=0

Thank you

Response from 50/50:

Hi David

Thank you for contacting us. This is an important issue and we are already investigating it. Thank you for the link.

Kind Regards
50|50 Team