Page 27 - KBHA BULLETIN 5

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The first was municipal unification, which, for the incorporated smaller municipalities, brought

the prospect of access to more substantial funding for public works. In 1913 the KB-MM, along
with seven other municipalities, was incorporated into the City of Cape Town. The new Cape

Town City Council regarded Kalk Bay – Muizenberg as an area of importance and evidently
favoured the idea of a high level road. One of the first tasks it undertook was a Town Planning

Survey of the old KB-MM area from Clovelly to Lakeside. The survey was completed in 1915,
and on the Town Planning Map produced by Mr E. W. Attridge is shown, for the first time, the

route of the proposed High Level Road: it ascended the southern slopes of Trappies Kop just

west of Woolley’s Pool, ran well above the development on the mountain slopes all the way to
Muizenberg North, and descended to Main Road in the vicinity of Thaxter Road north of the

Municipal Stables.

The second movement, the rise of motoring, was stimulated by the advent of the motor car and
because of it there emerged in Cape Town during these early decades a very powerful idea: The

All Round the Cape Peninsula Road (ARCPR). At this time it was impossible to travel all round

the Peninsula in the way that we do today: on the northern part of the Peninsula Victoria Road
from Camps Bay to Hout Bay was a made-up sandy track; no de Waal Drive existed to connect

Cape Town with Newlands; and Chapman’s Peak Drive had not been cut. In the South Peninsula
the road from Simon’s Town southwards to Smitswinkel Bay and Cape Point, and from

Smitswinkel Bay via Scarborough to Slangkop and Kommetjie also did not exist; the Red Hill
road had also not been constructed, although a rough ox-wagon track ran from Simon’s Town up

to the Klaver valley plateau. Construction of the ARCPR was adopted as Union Government

policy in 1913 and money for its construction was found by Mr H. C. Hull, Minister of Finance.
Apparently its construction was one of the many compensations made to Cape Town for the

transfer of the national capital to Pretoria in 1910, following Union. The Minister of Railways,
Mr J W Sauer, also supported its construction and made available 750 convicts gratis for the

task. (Boyes, 11/9/1923.)

Construction began in 1913 at Roeland Street under the auspices of the Public Works
Department and was later taken over by the Cape Provincial Administration. This part of the road

would run along the slopes of Devil’s Peak to link with Rhodes’ Carriage Drive and Newlands

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