Why does Daily Maverick call Equinix's Cape Town site a land bank?
Timeline for Daily Maverick
Mentioned in: Appeal stalls Equinix's Cape Town site
Data Centres: Boom and BacklashBackground
Daily Maverick is an independent South African online news publication. Its journalism is free to read, with revenue from Maverick Insider memberships, advertising, events and philanthropic grants.
Branko Brkic and Styli Charalambous founded the publication in 2009. It is independently owned, and Inkululeko South Africa Media, a non-profit, is its largest shareholder.
Its funding and ownership structure support a newsroom outside political-party, religious-body and media-group ownership. That structure defines its role as a South African publication serving a general online readership.
Daily Maverick covered the Cape Town appeal
On 6 August, Daily Maverick reported on an appeal that kept approval for Equinix’s proposed Cape Town data centre suspended. South Africa’s Housing Assembly and Foxglove cited limited public consultation and missing information on water, emissions and noise.
The report concerned a planning dispute, not an action by Daily Maverick itself. It put the objections and the suspended approval before its readers after the appeal had been lodged on 6 August. The event was reported more widely over six weeks later.
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Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Updated 24 September 2026. Editorial standards.