‘Shelter owners haven’t done their homework’
TWO PAPHOS district village communities have organised a protest demonstration for today over plans to build a dog shelter in the area.
The communities of Achelia and Timi announced that the demonstration would be held at 7pm in an effort to put a stop to the dog shelter plans after it failed to obtain a building permit from the local authorities.
Community leaders said planning permission had been requested and rejected in the past, but that the Agriculture Ministry had gone ahead and given permission for the dog shelter to relocate from an area in Paphos, without first discussing the matter with either community.
“The Agriculture Ministry went ahead and exchanged one piece of land for another within the government estate of Achelia. In its decision, it never took into account that the area is already heavily burdened with other unsanitary institutions, such as the sewerage processing plant, the air base, Paphos airport, farmhouses and other industries,” an announcement issued by the communities said.
It added: “We consider that by going ahead with building this facility, the surrounding villages will be permanently burdened by bad smells and noise pollution, while the possibility of developing neighbouring land in future will be non-existent…We are not opposed to creating this unit, but the dog shelter decision-makers were wrong to reject proposals of relocating to Orites or Souskiou, citing reasons that they were too far from Paphos. It seems some people prefer residents to move from their villages because of dogs.”
According to a source who wished to remain unnamed, the problem arose because the dog shelter owners had “not done their homework properly”.
“They bought a piece of land and didn’t look into whether they could get planning permission for it. Then they blamed the government when they were informed they couldn’t go ahead with the dog shelter,” he said.
Eventually the dog shelter was given permission to build on only three per cent of the land.
“They bought a piece of agricultural land and wanted to build on it. Now they are only allowed to build on small percentage and that won’t give them more than 10 kennels. I don’t know what they’re going to do,” he said.
The source said the people who ran the dog shelter were up in arms over the opposition they were facing and claimed that as part of Europe the government had to let them build.
“You have got to respect a country and its laws. First you go to a land registry office and say you want to buy a piece of land and then you enquire if you can build there. Only when you know you can build, do you buy; otherwise the land is useless.”
In the meantime Timi and Achelia residents have blocked off the road leading to the site, making the transfer of building equipment impossible and hindering work from going ahead.
