Johannesburg - A group opposing the construction of a new stadium in Cape Town to host a semi-final match in the 2010 World Cup was expected to seek a court interdict Friday to halt work at the arena site.
The chairman of Cape Town Environmental Protection Association said that lawyers for the group were seeking a hearing with a High Court judge to obtain an interdict on the demolition of the existing Green Point stadium.
The city is in the process of demolishing part of the existing stadium and excavating an adjacent site as part of plans for a new 2.9-billion rand, 68-seater stadium.
Arthur Wineberg, chairman of the environmental group, said that the interdict was being sought to halt demolition work pending the outcome of a legal review of the stadium planning process it sought in the High Court on April 3.
He accused Cape Town municipality of 'sheer bad faith' for failing to respect an undertaking they gave not to carry out irreversible work during the review period.
Wineberg's group is protesting the new stadium on financial and environmental grounds.
'To spend 3 billion on a 90-minute match is sheer folly and unacceptable,' said Wineberg, calling for Cape Town to host a World Cup quarter-final match instead of a semi-final, using one of two other stadia in the city.
The group, which numbers over 100 members, is also disputing the planned use of the Green Point land that was left to the city by a private citizen for use as commonage and has since fallen into disrepair.
An interdict require contractors to down tools could threaten the delivery of the stadium by the FIFA deadline of October 2009.
'Time is tight,' Cape Town 2010 spokesman Pieter Cronje told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, quantifying in 'days rather than weeks' the amount of downtime the city could afford if it were to remain within the deadline.
Demolition of the existing stadium is already 75 per cent complete and 5,000 cubic metres of earth had been excavated at the adjoining site, said Cronje.
'The (planning) process has been thorough and compliant. We didn't take any shortcuts,' he added.
Construction on Green Point stadium began only in March after being delayed for months by legal objections and wrangling between the city, contractors and the state over budget overruns.
The city says it wants to transform Green Point into a sport and recreation precinct over 85 hectares.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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