Public services are a prerequisite to the establishment of an enabling local development environment. Within such an environment, local people are able to make productive use of the opportunities for business partnerships, employment creation, income generation, economic output and tradable market economies, as well as gaining the capacity to resist threats. The lack of public services or their poor delivery, therefore, imposes severe limitations on the local development environment, thereby derailing the potential for local economic development (LED). This article argues that poor or inadequate service delivery for South Africa's impoverished communities makes it virtually impossible for communities to take control of their own development. A limiting local development environment implies that the local people would be unable to make use of the limited productive opportunities available and that they would not gain the capacity