EDITORIAL: Heritage site destruction shows cynical lack of respect

Knocking down old buildings no longer raises the outcry it once did. People marched when the Standard Theatre was about to be demolished, but that was in 1949 and in the heart of Joburg.

When a Herbert Baker building of 1911 was reduced to rubble in December, few noticed. Perhaps it was because the old Crown Mines head office was out of sight, in the out-of-the-way suburb of Selby.

What was revealing about its destruction was not so much the apathy as a cynical disregard for the law. The building, admittedly in decay, was a heritage site protected by law.

Now that the law has been broken, those who are answerable have some explaining to do, from the City of Joburg’s inept clerks who allowed the application, to the architect whose plans were fraudulently used to support it, to the present owner of the property.

If a criminal complaint is to be made, it’s the responsibility of the Provincial Heritage Resources Authority Gauteng, an organisation that has not lived up to its name in the Crown Mines case.