Attached is a photo taken during the fire which has destroyed the double-storey centrepiece, Nos 12 & 14, of the terrace of vacant Edwardian houses in Girdlestone Street, Port Elizabeth. They are/were 110 years old.
This was bound to happen. The owners Portnet/Propnet are guilty of demolition by neglect. I have been pleading for over ten years now for this row of houses, which faces the end of the high-level freeway into the City from the Grahamstown/Cradock direction, to be repaired, cared for and made to earn their keep, but the Port Authority, SAHRA, PHRA(EC) and the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality have done nothing.
Richard Tomlinson
RIP Girdlestone Street (Grizel Hart)
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