Mount Edgecombe

Mount Edgecombe or Mt Edgecombe is a town in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, situated just north of Durban, which forms part of eThekwini, the Greater Durban Metropolitan area. Much of the suburb is cordoned off as a gated settlement comprising resorts, golf courses and a retirement home. It was previously a sugar growing area. The population increased by 89% between 2001 and 2011 from 3,874 to 7,323. Its name is derived from Mount Edgcumbe House in Cornwall, England, the family seat of the Earls of Mount Edgcumbe.

Geography
Mount Edgecombe is situated in a hilly area just 4 km inland from the coastal resort of uMhlanga Rocks and approximately 14 km northeast of the Durban CBD. It is bounded to the east by the N2 freeway, to the north by the M41 freeway and to the west by the R102. Neighbouring towns include uMhlanga to the east and Phoenix to the west.

Mount Edgecombe encompasses three distinct areas - the Mount Edgecombe Country Club Estate, the industrial area to the west and the retail precinct to the north.

Culture and contemporary lifestyle
Mount Edgecombe Country Club Estate has long held its reputation as the most expensive estate in the Greater Durban metropolitan area and comprises two smaller golf estates, numbered 1 and 2 which contain their respective championship golf courses.

Sugar
With a long history as a sugarcane growing area, today Mount Edgecombe is essentially the centre for the South African sugar industry, home to the corporate headquarters of the South African Sugar Research Institute and the South African Sugar Association.

Although much of the sugarcane farms that once surrounded Mt Edgecombe have now been absorbed into the town, it is roughly as far as one can go within the Greater Durban metropolitan area before it dissolves into rolling sugarcane fields.

Industries
Mt Edgecombe is one of the smaller industrial centres in the Greater Durban metropolitan area mainly housing various light industries such as hardware and logistics – notably the regional distribution centres of Spar (for perishables) and Freedom Stationery.

Retail
Although Mount Edgecombe is primarily a residential suburb, it does have a retail precinct situated along Flanders Drive, on the northern border, lined by the Flanders Boutique Mall and a wide variety of automotive and technological businesses.

A notable landmark in Mount Edgecombe is the Cornubia Mall, a 65000 m2 shopping centre opened on 27 September 2017, which forms part of Cornubia City, a planned smart city north of the town developed on former sugarcane land by Tongaat Hulett.

Healthcare
Mount Edgecombe is served by the Life Mount Edgecombe Hospital, a private hospital owned by Life Healthcare Group located in the suburb of Rockford (falls under Phoenix), on the boundary between Phoenix and Mount Edgecombe.

Rail
Mount Edgecombe is served by the Mount Edgecombe Railway Station which lies on the main commuter line between Durban (via Phoenix) and KwaDukuza (via Verulam), known as the North Coast Line, operated by Metrorail.

Roads
The N2 Outer Ring Road is a north/south freeway, connecting Mount Edgecombe with Durban to the south and with King Shaka International Airport and KwaDukuza to the north, while the M41 is an east/west freeway, connecting Mount Edgecombe with uMhlanga to the east.

The R102 is a north–south regional route connecting Verulam with Durban that by-passes Mount Edgecombe to the west as North Coast Road. The M26 is an east/west metropolitan route connecting Mount Edgecombe with Phoenix as Phoenix Highway.

Developments


The Mount Edgecombe Interchange, recently upgraded in October 2019 serves as the interchange between the N2 and M41 freeways and has become a notable landmark in Mount Edgecombe especially with one of the flyovers being the longest incrementally launched bridge in South Africa, at a length of 948 metres.