HAWKERS operating at the entrance of the University of Limpopo's Turfloop campus heeded the Polokwane municipality's call for the entrance to be cleared of stalls and ramshackle kiosks - or face eviction.

The municipality threatened last week that it would bulldoze all the shacks on the road leading to the university's entrance if their owners did not demolish them by yesterday.

The hawkers were given seven working days to clear the area. The municipality claimed in papers last week that the shacks were used by criminals to hide in at night and attack students.

This was after police reported that 13 students from the same institution were raped between 2010 and 2012 by criminals who used the shacks as their hiding grounds.

Police spokesman in Mankweng, Constable Moses Molepo, said the majority of students who were raped were those using Gate-2, close to the shacks, when going to the library to study or those going to the shopping complex to buy groceries.

Municipality spokesman Tshidiso Mothapo said yesterday: "In terms of our programme, we were supposed to clear the area today.

"However, in a positive light the vendors themselves have agreed to co-operate by dismantling the shacks while others requested the municipality to assist them."

Mothapo said the municipality had allocated temporary stalls to the vendors to run their businesses. He said the stalls were just a short distance away from the gate and that they were accessible to students.

"A process to sign a lease agreement between the municipality and the vendors is on the cards, and a workshop for the vendors to understand the lease agreement and other basic conditions attached to the stalls was also being arranged and is scheduled to take place today [yesterday]."

Mothapo said the workshop would also highlight issues like waste management and the responsibilities of the vendors managing the stalls.

"It is expected that the allocation process and the establishment of a tenant liaison committee should be concluded by the end of this week. By close of business today [yesterday], we expect the street leading to the gate to be cleared out," he said.

Deputy chairwoman of the Hawkers Association, Rose Ramohlale, said yesterday that the new location for the business was however "far" from prospective buyers - who happened to be students.

"The new stalls are also not enough to accommodate all the hawkers, and students will have to walk a distance to reach them as opposed to the first location."

By noon yesterday, hawkers were working around the clock under police supervision to dismantle their shacks and relocating to the new area.