By: Tony Manyangadze

The eThekwini Municipality on Thursday revealed a possible plan that will result in the pedestrianisation of one of Durban’s busiest road, Pixley ka Seme Street, formally known as West Street.

Nina Saunders from the eThekwini Municipality’s Strategic Architectural Projects division confirmed. She was speaking at the eThekwini Sustainability Seminar that took place at the Durban Botanical Garden.

The basic concept of this ambitious plan is to create a green passage that will possibly redirect and impede all the traffic from going down the street and by so doing make people walk instead.

“One of the strong initiatives is to link Warwick and the Warwick area along Pixley ka Seme, through the government and civic spaces to the beach front,” said Saunders.

“We are looking at a project that prioritises the pedestrian and how in this public street one creates space for better social cohesion,” she added.

Details of this idea will be finalised in August 2014 when over 7000 Architects are expected to grace Durban for the Annual World Architecture Conference.

Also present at this seminar was Gwendolyn Hallsmith, Director of Planning and Community Development based in Montpelier, Canada. Amongst other things, she spoke about shared leadership emphasizing that it is necessary for both leadership positions and responsibilities to be decentralised so that more people can actively participate and protect their environment.

Gwendolyn Hallsmith, speaking at the eThekwini Sustainability Seminar: Pictures By: Thomas Ferreira

“If all of the leaderships, skills, knowledge and power, is found in fewer and fewer hands the rest of us don’t have the capacity to exercise that form of leadership … ”

Durbanites were also warned about the effects of technology. Guy Brazier, Office Managing Partner at Deloitte noted that there is nothing new technology is offering that nature itself is not offering. “Technology is just trying to mimic nature,” he said.

Brazier is also convinced that days of countries fighting over energy are fast going and the world must embrace itself for yet another war.

“Wars for the past 100-years have been caused by energy but the next 100-years wars will be over water,” he added.