26/04/2022
Did you know that Victoria Falls 'City' is still using a planning document drawn up in 1975 (the '1975 Outline Scheme') as the main guiding document in making major planning decisions... a document nearly 50 years old!!! Victoria Falls town has, in that time, grown from a population of about 3,000 to over 40,000... and expanded from covering about 310 hectares to over 2,212 hectares by 2001...
Heath, writing in 1977 recorded the population of Victoria Falls Town in the mid-1970s at around 3,000, and already highlighting increasing tourism pressures:
“The rapid growth of Victoria Falls during the last decade has caused considerable planning problems. It is of paramount importance that the immediate vicinity of the Falls should be altered as little as possible if its natural qualities are to be preserved” (Heath, 1977)
In 1973 Victoria Falls town was estimated to cover 310 hectares (PlanAfric, 2001).
By 1982 the population of Victoria Falls Town had grown to 8,126 (Central Statistics Office, 1989).
The 1992 population census showed that Victoria Falls Town population had grown to 16,826 (Central Statistics Office, 1994) and by 1995 the town had expanded to cover an estimated 758 hectares (PlanAfric, 2001).
In 2001 the town covered an area of 2,212 hectares (PlanAfric, 2001) and by 2002 the population was recorded at 31,375 (Central Statistics Office, 2002).
In 2019 the town's population had reached 40,000 (ZimStats, 2019)... and I've yet to find a more recent figure for the area now covered by the town's developments...