A legal dispute over the granting of an environmental authorisation for a 5-km new road, the K148, in southern Gauteng has the potential to highlight serious legal impediments to the development of any new road in the increasingly traffic-congested province. This, owing to an alleged misalignment between provisions in the Gauteng Transport and Infrastructure Act (GTIA) with prevailing environmental legislation, as well as the reality of progressive encroachment of illegal settlements on to land “frozen” by the Act for future roads.
