Residents of Livadia are planning a protest after work on the second phase of Panagouli Avenue, the busy road linking Larnaca with the fast-growing area, was put back to no earlier than 2030, more than 20 years behind schedule. Local officials say traffic is being sent down an inner road past three schools, putting children at risk.
Livadia deputy mayor Marios Armeni told Phileleftheros the authorities had said work would hopefully begin in 2030, having previously told them 2028. “Unfortunately, those responsible are looking the other way,” he said.
The avenue is classified as a road of primary importance. The first phase was completed 20 years ago, and Livadia’s Community Council was promised at the time that the second would follow immediately, Armeni said, adding that it had received only announcements since then.
At peak hours, traffic backs up as far as the Ayia Napa-Rizoelia motorway, with cars sometimes at a standstill on the motorway itself and queues reaching the church of Agios Savvas, he said. The inner road also carries traffic heading for the Kokkinochoria area and Nicosia, and the three schools along it have more than 1,000 pupils from eight communities.
Planned protest
Armeni said residents were collecting data to show what happens at peak hours, after which parents’ associations from the schools and residents of the municipal district would hold a protest, on a date yet to be announced. They will not block roads, he said, because people already suffer enough every day.
Earlier delays
The master plan for the road was prepared in 2009. When Phileleftheros raised the issue a year and a half ago, the Department of Town Planning and Housing said the project had an initial estimated cost of 12 million euros and “could start in 2028”.
It added at the time that the date would have to be reassessed in light of current capabilities. The department blamed the delays on Cyprus’s adverse fiscal situation in the period following 2011, and then on the preparation of a new master plan, whose approval took five years.
