NICOSIA Municipality yesterday slammed shopkeepers along the capital’s pedestrian thoroughfares for demanding that cars be allowed back into the city centre.
On Tuesday, owners of shops along Ledra and Onasagorou street announced a two hour shut-down on November 27 in protest at what they see as Town Hall’s “couldn’t care less” attitude to their dwindling takings. They see pedestrianisation as the main culprit.
In a lengthy announcement yesterday, the municipality replied to the shopkeeper’s gripes one by one.
“We were surprised by the claim that the problems for Nicosia within the walls began with pedestrianisation of the Ledra-Onasagorou area.”
The municipality did not deny that “certain” shops were facing hard times, but this had started well before pedestrianisation, the municipality stated. A study carried out before pedestrianisation, between 1988 and 1989, indicated that shops in the area were already experiencing reduced takings, it said.
The shop owners, represented by the Povek union, claim they were never consulted about the project.
But the municipality retorted that two thirds of shop owners had come out in favour of pedestrianisation when their opinions were canvassed during a feasibility study for the project.
Polls conducted at the same time also showed shoppers in old Nicosia were 95 per cent in favour of pedestrianisation, the municipality stated.
Similar studies after pedestrianisation showed a growing support for the project among the public, the municipality added.
Pedestrianisation had also encouraged other improvements, the municipality said. “More than a third of the shops in the area have been renovated, a trend the municipality supports with financial incentives.”
“Another claim which does not stand up concerns the reduction of residents in within-the-walls Nicosia since pedestrianisation,” the announcement stated. The local population had dropped since the invasion, but not because of pedestrianisation, the municipality stated.
The municipality blamed the downturn in the fortunes of Ledra and Onasagorou street shops on the growth of out-of-town megastores and the “huge” number of shops now competing for trade. There is now one store for every 14 people on the island, the municipality stated.
