The illegal expansion of the Spruit informal settlement into privately-owned land in areas west of Pretoria have brought a headache to homeowners and frustrated farmers in Erasmia.
The settlement has been in the area for a number of years, but it remained limited to a portion of land owned by the City of Tshwane. But a visit to the area at the weekend found that stands had been sold illegally on land earmarked for development by an Irish consortium.
Residents said this was not the first time the settlement expanded into private spaces. Just last year a large number of shacks were demolished by authorities and the police after land owner Gerrard Rock took the matter to court to obtain an eviction order.
However, he now said he was receiving less or no help from authorities, because this comes at an expensive cost of a couple of hundred thousands of rand every time he has to start a process to evict the people.
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