• Client:
  South African National Roads Agency Limited
  (SANRAL)
• Appointment:
  2001 and ongoing
• Scope of Work:
  Auditing the legal and physical status of land
  affected by the construction of new national
  roads or the upgrading of existing national roads.
• Cost of Project:
  R3m to date

MHP has undertaken several land audits for SANRAL including:

1. A 50km section of the N4 known as the Rustenburg bypass.
2. A 40km new proposed route for the N3 between Ladysmith and Warden known as De Beers Pass.
3. A 70km section of the N11 between Leandre and Ermelo.

The auditing process consists of a legal and physical audit.

The legal audit starts with the preparation of a Cadastral Key Plan for the entire route. The land parcel data is normally captured directly from hardcopy survey diagrams and loaded directly to a GIS. The next step is the research the title deeds of each property affected by the National Road to establish whether there are any restrictive conditions affecting the land that may prejudice the proposed road development. Onerous conditions are dealt with using appropriate legislation. In South Africa, the Removal of Restrictions Act, No. 84 of 1967 is most often used.

The physical audit process usually requires a comprehensive inspection of the land to identify land use, services to each land parcel e.g. electricity, water etc and the position, condition and extent of physical improvements to the land.

The legal and physical audit information is most often captured to a GIS.

GIS technology is used to produce necessary drawings and graphs to support the legal and physical audit reports.

KEY RESULTS:

SANRAL has saved vast sums of money by conducting legal and physical audits early on in the road development cycle. Legal and physical obstacles identified in the report are dealt with timeously before construction, thus minimising construction delays.