Scottsdene streetlight focus: City fixes severely vandalised streetlight infrastructure

16 April 2025

The City’s Energy teams attended to a number of streetlight-related service requests on vandalism hot spot routes in Scottsdene, Kraaifontein. This work forms part of the City’s focus on making communities brighter, despite the vandalism and theft challenge. In addition, over the next three years the City is investing significantly in its street- and public lighting programme, which includes the installation of the more efficient light-emitting diode (LED) luminaires metro-wide.

Cape Town Mayor, Geordin Hill-Lewis and the Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Alderman Xanthea Limberg visited Energy teams at a hot spot site in Scottsdene where streetlights were being attended to.

‘The City continues to place a large focus on its streetlight repair programme in communities.  Our city-wide streetlight programme forms part of our commitment to public safety and community wellbeing. We are allocating additional resources to bolster our efforts against vandalism, theft and illegal connections that impact community power infrastructure. These acts not only compromise the functionality of our streetlight infrastructure, but also places a strain on our resources – especially in severely impacted communities. During our recent visit to Scottsdene as part of our streetlight focus repair programme, the Mayor and I witnessed first-hand the extent of the damage caused by these destructive activities,’ said Alderman Limberg.

The City maintains more than 245 000 streetlights across the metro, while other national and provincial agencies maintain some national and provincial routes including the on- and off-ramps of those roadways. Scottsdene, Kraaifontein falls within an Eskom electricity supply area but the City is responsible for the maintenance and repairs of streetlights in the area.

Reported streetlight service requests for Kraaifontein (including duplicates):

• March 2025 - 582
• February 2025 - 381
• January 2025 - 401
• December 2024 – 361

‘On a monthly basis, our teams typically attend to hundreds of streetlight services requests. The City thanks all communities for their support and for reporting streetlight related service requests to us. Your reporting assists us greatly in attending to vandalised infrastructure as quickly as possible.

‘Our teams continue to restore and repair streetlights in all areas and we are prioritising areas identified as hot spots. We are enhancing our security measures to deter vandalism as far as possible and we encourage all residents to report any instances of vandalism and illegal connections to the City,’ said Alderman Limberg.

Let’s ACT: Protect Your Power
Report suspicious behaviour to the City’s Public Emergency Communication Centre: 021 480 7700

Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office