No timetable can yet be set for closing the Tseri firing range, Defence Minister Vasilis Palmas told parliament’s defence committee on Thursday, although the aim is still to shut it and find an alternative site.
The current requisition order for the range, issued in 2023, expires on November 8, 2026, so a new procedure will be needed. Land opposite the site has been earmarked for a new secondary school, about 800 metres away.
Palmas said plans to move the range had not begun under his tenure but followed political decisions by previous defence ministers. Before a timetable could be set, he said, issues concerning land, the Church and the permits needed for plots to be handed over had to be resolved.
Firing ranges were a wider problem for the Defence Ministry and the National Guard General Staff (GEEF), he said, as towns and communities had grown considerably since many of the facilities were set up. Problems at Tseri had been recorded for decades, and the first requisition order was signed in 1991.
Earlier plan put at 60 million euros
An earlier plan had envisaged a larger range, about 600 metres long, at an estimated cost of around 60 million euros.
Stelios Kountouris, the Defence Ministry’s deputy director-general, said several plots had already been requisitioned for it, but more land was needed and the cost was very high. The National Guard will therefore redesign the new range to meet future operational needs and safety requirements, and a tender for construction is expected once the design is complete.
Kountouris said preliminary studies had been carried out with GEEF and all the land had been requisitioned except two plots belonging to Kykkos Monastery, whose transfer has been requested. The Department of Lands and Surveys said it currently had no active application for an exchange of church land, and that an earlier one had been withdrawn.
Training concerns
GEEF deputy chief Neofytos Pachoulides said Tseri is used for light weapons and that ten ranges have already closed, most of them for small arms, making training harder. Its proximity is particularly useful for reservists and Home Guard members in Nicosia district, he said.
Exercises must end by 9pm in summer and 5pm in winter, with no night firing, which he said affected training for night operations and, cumulatively, the National Guard’s operational capability.
Local concerns
The Tseri local authority said housing had come significantly closer to the site and called for the relocation to be speeded up, saying the range was affecting development in the area and causing concern among residents during firing.
The deputy mayor said gunfire could be heard across much of Tseri and that military units passed through residential areas to reach the range. He asked that the scale of activities be reviewed until it is moved.
MPs press for timetable
Parliament members asked the ministry for at least an approximate timetable. AKEL parliament member Valentinos Fakontis said the issue had been before parliament since 2014, with still no clear answers on when the range would close or where the new one would be. Andreas Pasiourtides said a political decision to close it should come with a plan and timetable.
Panikos Xiourouppas asked whether the school’s timetable would be linked to the range’s removal, expressing concern about how close the two would be.
Committee chairman Evgenios Hamboullas called for long-term state planning for firing ranges and military camps, with adequate buffer zones so that future development does not restrict their operation. He said the National Guard’s needs should be planned over a 25-year horizon, including through compulsory purchase where necessary.
