French experts recommend facelift for shopping area

TWO OF Nicosia’s most popular shopping streets, Ledra and Onasagorou, will undergo a major facelift if French experts enlisted to investigate the issue have their way.

Nicosia Municipality, under mayor Lellos Demetriades, has in recent years shown great interest in restoring the old town, where the streets are situated.

For the past decade they have been closed off to all vehicles except delivery vans on certain days.

Announcing some of their suggestions yesterday, French experts Alain Lorgeoux and Louis Josse said that Nicosia and Rennes, the capital of the province of Brittany, had much in common.

Lorgeoux is Rennes’ construction director and Josse a top French architect.

Using illustrations of Rennes and other European cities with pedestrian-only shopping streets such as those leading to La Grande Place in Brussels, the two experts highlighted the possibilities for Nicosia.

What was especially vital, Lorgeoux and Josse said, was for proper parking facilities in the city centre with clear signposting to their location and how many empty spaces remain.

More consumer-friendly spots should also be set up, the men said, such as cafés along the Green Line.

The experts also suggested that shops along the two streets of Ledra and Onasagorou in particular and in the old town in general undergo moderations to make them more aesthetically pleasing.

Lorgeoux and Josse were commissioned by the Nicosia Municipality and Technical Chamber (Etek), and are currently on their third visit to Cyprus.

They first came to view the area and meet the parties involved such as the municipality, Etek and shopkeepers, and their second visit saw them hearing suggestions by the parties.

They will visit Cyprus at least once more in order to give their final report and supervise the beginning of any work that may be done.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.