The City of Cape Town has reportedly sold a portion of land occupied by Rylands Cricket Club.
The land has reportedly been sold to neighbouring Melomed Gatesville Private Hospital. The sale will affect the AW Mukuddem Oval at Rylands Cricket Club.
“The news came via our facilities management committee. This process of the sale of the land has been coming on for many years. However, there has not been clear communication from the City to all the relevant stakeholders, Rylands Cricket Club executive committee member Riyaaz Parker told Voice of the Cape.
“This has now obviously been brought to the attention of the cricket club by the FMC. We have now been told the sale has potentially gone through. However, we don’t believe meaningful engagement has taken place – not only with the cricket club, but with the greater community.
“Meaningful engagement needs to be constructive input from all parties. I can’t believe the City would just dispose of recreational land – limited land. In our community, we don’t have many green spaces. The City, and I could speak under correction, did not look for proper alternatives.
“We are going to lose half the field and there is a proposed plan for this. But we have never been constructively consulted on that plan – to ascertain if we are actually happy with that plan.
“The plan I have seen, and again I could speak under correction, does not seem to be suitable. We are losing land and we don’t believe the land we are losing is being replaced. Boundaries are going to be on fences. Boundaries are going to be bordering flats. There is potential damage to property from cricket balls.
“The City has not considered these things, I think. We are losing too much space, although there is potentially another triangular space the City is looking to incorporate. But we have not had confirmation of that. We speak under correction and the City needs to answer some of these questions.
“We have worked hard to bring the field to this standard. We have been rated, I believe, as one of the top facilities in the Western Cape in terms of the cricketing circles. That’s from a disadvantaged community. We have hosted international matches in the Over-50 World Cup. This all is what we are potentially losing.
“There are meetings being set up. We have been asking for information. It has been coming through in dribs and drabs. We wrote to the mayor’s office in, I think, 2022 about this. We never received a response to that communication. We are uncertain. We need the City to sit down with us and all relevant stakeholders.
“If they are going to add, say, 300 parking bays there, how is that going to affect traffic? How did the City go about electing to sell that land? Was the land offered to other stakeholders in the community or not? Was that process fair? We don’t know. These are the questions we are asking.”
Melomed Gatesville Private Hospital.
Rylands Cricket Club’s first XI have been promoted to the 2025-26 Western Province Cricket Association premier league after winning the 2024-25 WPCA first division A title.
“How can the City of Cape Town approve the sale of land in Rylands to a private hospital (for parking) that will result in Rylands Cricket Club, who play in the WP premier league, to lose half their main field. RCC has used the land since the 1980s (before the private medical hospital existed),” former Rylands Cricket Club chairman Saleem Mukuddem wrote on social media.
“Would this be approved at Western Province Cricket Club, Rondebosch, Claremont or Durbanville Cricket Club? We are struggling to obtain evidence of a public participation process or to see how previous concerns have been addressed by the City. Our poorer communities suffer from poor or inadequate facilities and now this.
“A city that is anti poor. Anti community. The community is not anti growth. Just not at the expense of losing half a cricket field that is part of the community’s heritage.”
Saleem Mukuddem.
Rylands Cricket Club executive committee member, doctor Muneem Ebrahim, told Voice of the Cape: “For us, to lose half the field, it would have a major and massive impact. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the late Intikaab Ismail’s big role in developing our field as it is today.
“Intikaab took charge of the field and a lot of work has gone into it. We are actively involved in improving the field, improving the facility – not just for cricket. We want to build a recreational facility there for the rest of the community.
“If I look at the Rylands community as a whole, this is the only facility where we can play sport. The field is used for soccer, too. Having put in so much work, to now lose that would be really tragic.”
