Last year , Capital began following an exciting development in Pietermaritzburg , led at the time by the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Treasury . The city ’ s airport was to become the first of four locations in the province of KwaZulu-Natal to have special technology hubs developed . The move could have the potential to be a game changer for the city , as well as for the province . Three of the four locations have now broken ground and have met the deadline for accessing a R120-million United Nations grant for the project . Pietermaritzburg is not one of them . “ The roll out of the proposed infrastructure for the site has been delayed due to the pending environmental authorisation ,” said David Gengan , Msunduzi Senior Manager : Economic Development Services ( Acting ) late last year . “ The scoping report has been completed , and the final EIA is scheduled to be submitted by 15 December , 2016 .” Gengan explained that as a result of this delay , Pietermaritzburg will no longer have access to the funding that was earmarked for the city ’ s airport tech hub development . He said that this will now go to the other three hubs — at Richards Bay , Newcastle and Port Shepstone — which will share the bulk of the current infrastructure grant . However , Gengan assured us that that the initial prospective tenants are still on board and the project would go ahead . “ This situation means that we have had to consider a new development programme for the hub ,” he said . “ We are busy with this now . As soon as we have received environmental authorisation we will make application for an infrastructure support grant from the DTI .”
An important project for Pietermaritzburg
The building of a technology hub at Pietermaritzburg Airport has substantial implications for the capital city of KwaZulu-Natal . It not only stands to cement its position as Africa ’ s “ cycling city ”, but it can also change the state of technological innovation in the province . The crux of the idea during the planning of this tech hub was aimed at the boosting of the region ’ s contribution to South Africa ’ s science and technology fields . Patent and R & D statistics for KZN , when reviewed in 2012 , did not paint a good picture . The question was : “ How do you set up a science and technology industry that will innovate ?” The answer appears to be technology hubs : centres where like-minded entities can coalesce and benefit from each other ’ s work . It ’ s how countries like South Korea got their science and technology going , and is no doubt one of the major contributors to their global success today .
Africa ’ s cycling city
Each of the four KZN hubs was envisioned to focus primarily on a particular industry . In Pietermaritzburg the focus has been planned to be primarily aviation , but would also include a multi-sport centre complete with the world ’ s second-only UCI-accredited velodrome ( the other one is in Switzerland ). Pietermaritzburg has already been very successful in establishing itself as a cycling capital : from 2008 to 2014 , total revenue generated from hosting 27 cycling events ( see page 30 ) was estimated by Treasury at around R171 million . Visitors to these events spent around R135 million while the total direct , indirect and induced spend was in the region of R362 million . The cycling events generated 1 700 hours of local and international TV coverage , with the media coverage estimated to be worth R5 billion . The development of a world-class velodrome in the city would likely make the city a centre for track cycling too . It would build
A game changer
WORDS BY Barry du Plessis Photos supplied unless otherwise credited .
on the tremendous success the city has already had with cycling , and add to installations that include the Cascades Cycle Park that hosted the prestigious 2013 UCI MTB World Championships and the 2014 UCI MTB World Cup , and the city ’ s internationally accredited BMX facility , at which the 2011 UCI BMX Supercross World Cup and the 2013 BMX National Championships were hosted . When Capital spoke to Cycling SA , during the planning stages of the tech hub , Mylene Paynter , PR & Communications Officer for Cycling SA said that the velodrome couldn ’ t be built quickly enough . “ An indoor velodrome can add to a country ’ s success in world cycling ,” she said . “ For instance , British Cycling went from one cycling Olympic medal to 20 cycling medals in a space of 10 years by building more velodromes , and by focusing on the technical and skills aspects of the sport . This helped their development of cycling .” The velodrome at Pietermaritzburg Airport ’ s tech hub was planned to include a multi-sports facility , which would have a multitude of other possible spin-off benefits . Such a multi-sport centre could become a winter training facility for northern-
24 | Issue 2 | Capital