Grinch steals V&A's festive cheer

The V&A Waterfront has become a victim of its own success.

Desperate to provide an extra 300 parking bays for the festive shopping season, the tourist attraction built a three-storey temporary parking garage without planning permission - and now it faces an R846,000-penalty from the City of Cape Town.

The structure at the Granger Bay Boulevard entrance is designed to be movable, so the V&A can erect it on whatever spare land it has.

City of Cape Town planning officials told councillors in a report that an order to stop work on the "highly visible" 2400m² building was issued on 29 September, a fortnight after the V&A submitted a land use application.

In a letter to the council, V&A CEO David Green said that the car park was planned as "a major benefit to the millions of visitors to the V&A, particularly over the festive season".

V&A spokesman Carla White told The Times: "With festive-season readiness in mind, we moved ahead on construction in parallel with our normal planning approval process."

The V&A reported a 26% increase in retail sales in the first half of the year this week. The centre attracts more than 24-million visitors a year - with 100,000 arriving on busy days.

Source: The Times