Officials ‘unaware of Akamas hotel plans’

By Martin Hellicar

THE PAPHOS District office yesterday pleaded ignorance of reported plans for a second hotel development within the area earmarked for an Akamas national park.

Friends of the Akamas, the group that has campaigned longest and hardest for the preservation of the Akamas peninsula, has claimed that the government has granted a licence to Grecian Hotels to build a 264-bed five- star hotel on the Asprokremmos coast west of Latchi. The family firm of former Foreign Minister Alecos Michaelides, Thanos Hotels, has already built a large hotel complex on the same coast – after securing planning relaxations from the cabinet while Michaelides was still in office.

The Paphos District office was unable to comment on the greens’ claims yesterday, but promised the matter would be looked into.

The Town Planning Department in Nicosia was put “out of action” by an official visit from new Interior Minister Christodoulos Christodoulou, and there was no reply from the Grecian Hotel offices in Paralimni.

Friends of the Akamas have called on the government to explain why a new development was being sanctioned and to revoke the licence.

The government is in the final stages of approving a management plan for an Akamas national park, but environmentalists fear that developments like the Thanos Hotels complex are destroying the pristine area.

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