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from Cape Town. The report also recommended that the Kalk Bay storage facilities should be

increased to supply Simon’s Town with 10,000 gallons/day.

The minority report recommended the formation of two municipalities: Sea Point, Cape

Town and part of Woodstock; remainder of Woodstock, with Mowbray, Rondebosch,

Claremont and Wynberg. Kalk Bay-Muizenberg and Simon’s Town were excluded, and
Maitland was left detached. The water augmentation scheme should be undertaken by a Joint

Water Board appointed by the eight municipalities, or by Cape Town alone provided
sufficient supplies were guaranteed by statute to the other municipalities.

In April 1903 the Council met to consider the reports, as well as a request from the Colonial
Secretary that a Congress of the committees of the local authorities should be convened for

the purpose of determining the views of the people of the Peninsula and deciding on the issue

of amalgamation. Council favoured the recommendations of the majority report but
ultimately decided to delay consideration of amalgamation until there was greater clarity on

the preferred water scheme and greater unanimity among the various municipalities.

Although Draft Bills proposing various water schemes were drawn up from time to time by
the suburban municipalities, the years 1903 – 1911 were a time of inaction on the

amalgamation issue as “all the municipalities were in the hey-day of prosperity and
exceedingly busy with their own affairs and looking forward to great expansion and

development.” (MUC Report, 1912: 8.) When, in May 1908, the Citizens’ Guild
recommended that the Town Council again consider the desirability of amalgamation on the

lines of the Commission’s majority report, the Council concluded that while amalgamation

was desirable the time was not opportune for this step.

Unification only took place in 1913 and Wynberg joined only in 1927. Why did the creation

of a greater Cape Town take so long?