Commissioned by the Dept. of Health and Social Welfare NW Province Odi Health and Welfare District (Winterveldt Survey -Findings)
Undertaken by: AMREF (Hosted by: Sapler Population Trust)
Winterveldt is an informal urban settlement and a smallholding area approximately 9 500 hectares. It is situated approximately 40 km north west of Pretoria, adjacent to Mabopane in the North West Province.
Winterveldt is unique in terms of its history, land ownership, tenancy and style of housing. It is one of very few areas in South Africa where land was purchased by black South Africans before 1948, surveyed and legally registered in their names.
Winterveldt is divided into a rural, northern half and southern, "proclaimed" urban half called Klippan. Population densities are much higher in the southern portion of Winterveldt. In Vilakazi, the very southern part of Winterveldt, densities are as high as 40 dwellings/ha) on some plots. Population figures, number of dwellings and plot statistics are summarized in table 1 below.
| Area | No. of plots | No. of dwellings | Ave. no. of dwellings per plot | Ave. no of people per dwelling | Ave. Density (Dwellings/ha) | Total Population |
| Klippan S Klippan N 5 Morgan 10 Morgan |
235 355 630 430 |
17 806 9 572 5 066
|
76 27 8 5 |
6.1 5.6 7.1 7.4 |
16.1 5.7 1.7 0.5 |
108 000 54 000 36 000 15 000 |
| Overall | 1650 | 32 444 | 21 | 6.5 | 24.0 | 213 000 |
Source: Mvula Trust, et al, (1997). (Evaluation of Winterveldt Water Supply Scheme Synthesis Report - 1996 figures)
Plots are typically 4.2 hectares (5 Morgan) in the southern part and 8.4 hectares (10 Morgan) in the north. All the plots are owned by private individuals who received freehold title when they were originally developed.
The rights of the plot owners to control what happens on their land is one of the distinguishing features of Winterveldt and the owners represent a particular stakeholder in the local development process.
The community of Winterveldt is in many ways typical of informal settlements on the periphery of a major 'core' metropolitan area. It has a legacy of rapid, unmanaged growth, there are complex tenure arrangements, and it is dependent on the core area for income and additional services.
Between forty and forty five percent of the population are unemployed, wages are low with just under half of the households having incomes of less than R5 00 per month. Approximately one third of the population is Tswana-speaking and the remainder have a wide variety of cultural origins.
Winterveldt is a sub-district of ODI, which is the referral hospital for the two government health facilities: Kgabo Health Centre and Dube Clinic. Both facilities offer a 24-hour fully comprehensive service, with a maternity unit and a medical practitioner on a session basis.
Four non-governmental clinics also operate in Winterveldt: Sisters of Mercy; St Peter's; St Joseph's and Thusong. St Peter's and St Joseph's deal mainly with handicapped persons; Thusong is a preventative clinic and Sisters of Mercy provides a primary health care service. All four clinics employ nurses and Community Health Workers. Community Health Workers have been trained by Sisters of Mercy.
A 1993 survey of water consumption in 445 households (Palmer Development Group; 1994) revealed that sixty percent of the households obtained their water from vendors with an estimated average of 79 litres per household per day bought from these vendors. Fifty four percent of households had to walk further than 500 metres to fetch water and thirty percent had to walk further than 1 km.
Informal sources such as boreholes, wells, Toloane River and smaller streams provided and still provide the water supply to the majority of the residents. In 1993/94 Rand Water Board installed a number of water standpipes, predominantly on Bushveld Road. By the end of March, approximately 123 km of pipes had been laid in the ground. Above ground, a pilot project (Ward 2, Vilakazi) has installed 21 standpipes (Palmer Development Group; 1997).
In 1991, the water from 34 wells and 25 boreholes in Klippan was tested for faecal coliform bacteria by the then, Bophutaswana Department of Water Affair's Pollution Control Inspectorate. Only 12 out of 25 boreholes tested (48.0%) tested were free from faecal coliform bacteria; indicating that the quality of the water was unfit for human consumption.
The low quality of the ground water and surface water has been attributed to the use of pit latrines, in close proximity to wells and boreholes; the high water table and soil conditions which cause seepage and overflow from pit latrines into boreholes and wells; leaving well uncovered at night where animals graze; and the lack of refuse removal service (Palmer Development; 1994).
Most of the residents in Klippan use homemade pit latrines for sanitation; some household in Klippan North have ventilated improved pit latrines (Westaway M.; 1997). Some households, particularly in the rural section, have no sanitation.