Brazil
Delivering Latin America’s biggest metro with Concessionária Linha Universidade
Contact
Marc Chunnett
Project Director
project overview
Investing in the city’s people and heritage
Informal trading plays a vital role in Cape Town’s economy and everyday life. Markets such as, Gatesville and Khayelitsha are more than trading spaces – they are places of connection, culture and local enterprise. But ageing infrastructure, limited services and safety challenges have made it harder for traders to work with security and dignity.
The city’s informal trading infrastructure programme responds to these pressures by upgrading market environments across the city, while retaining the character and identity that make each trading place unique. The focus is practical and people-first: create spaces that are safe, functional and welcoming while preserving the social and cultural identity of the marketplaces.
PROJECT STORY
How do you deliver improvements to local trading spaces while keeping community at the heart?
As the lead of the Turner & Townsend / Bergstan JV Consortium, we were commissioned by the City of Cape Town to plan and deliver 64 projects under the Area Economic Development programme at various stages in their respective project lifecycles. These ranged from small-scale neighbourhood enhancements to the revitalisation of heritage-rich destinations like the and Bo-Kaap Market.
We implemented the City of Cape Town project delivery framework that ensured consistency across the programme while allowing flexibility to respond to each market’s unique context. Traders and community representatives were actively involved in shaping priorities and design decisions, ensuring that improvements reflected real needs rather than top-down assumptions.
Our work included overall programme management and coordination, project management, contract management, planning, stakeholder engagement, design coordination, procurement, cost control and day-to-day delivery oversight. By streamlining approvals, keeping designs practical and maintaining tight schedules, we helped projects progress while managing commercial risk.
Creating opportunity, stability and long-term value
The programme is already making daily life better for traders and the communities they serve. Markets in Pelican Park, Bo-Kaap, Khayelitsha, Gatesville and others now offer safer, cleaner and more welcoming places to work and gather.
The upgrades help traders run their businesses with dignity, while customers experience vibrant public spaces rather than makeshift environments. The programme also generated opportunities for local contractors and professionals, helping to build skills and keep economic value within the community.
Importantly, the Area Economic Development and the City of Cape Town has created a successful blueprint for a scalable, community-sensitive model for upgrading informal trading environment The model is one that protects local identity and gives this vital part of the economy room to thrive.
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