LAST week’s fatal accident on the site of the planned Limni Golf Resort has drawn attention to what the Green Party alleges is a commercial project which “has carried on for more than a year without a permit, without an environmental study, without a risk assessment report”, and which the land’s owner insists is work to “rehabilitate and upgrade the physical environment of the area”.
The row centres on the disused mine at Limni, near Polis Chrysochous (Paphos), which is owned by Cyprus Limni Resorts and GolfCourses plc, in turn owned by the Shacolas Group.
An electrician working for the contractor was killed on the site on Wednesday by a 150-ton truck driven by a co-worker.
The Greens have long claimed that work started by the Shacolas Group a year ago is illegal. This has involved filling in the mine and moving around the huge piles of contaminated residue left over from the extraction method used at the mine until it ceased operations in 1979.
Disposal of this contaminated residue poses particular problems, since burying it would result in ground contamination. Residents of nearby Argaka village have also expressed fears that poisonous residue carried by the wind to their village could cause serious illness.
Shacolas Group has consistently denied any illegality. In February of this year, Shacolas Group Public Relations Director Pavlos Pavlou said: “Nothing illegal is taking place, and we are not acting beyond our legal rights. We are following the procedures provided by law. None of these accusations are true.”
The group obtained licenses to construct two signature golf courses in the area, but the planning permits needed for building to start have still not been granted. In November 2008, the Interior Minister issued an order to suspend all work on site, against which Cyprus Limni Resorts lodged an appeal.
In a press statement issued following the electrician’s death last week, the Greens said that the government either could not or did not want to enforce the law, giving free passage to the “big businessmen’s trucks”. It added that “work has carried on for more than a year without a permit, without an environmental study, without a risk assessment report”.
A very public response was issued yesterday by Shacolas Group and Cyprus Limni Resorts, in the form of large-format announcements – headed “No illegality whatsoever in Limni” – published in Phileleftheros, Politis and Simerini newspapers.
The announcements said the Paphos District Officer and the mayor of Polis Chrysochous have both confirmed that since the work involved at the Limni site does not amount to property development, it does not break any town-planning law.
It added that the work to “rehabilitate and upgrade the physical environment of the area” is being carried out at the company’s own expense of tens of millions of euros “despite not having any legal obligation to do so”.
It also stated that the company submitted environmental impact studies to the relevant government bodies on 15 April 2008. An Environmental Impact Report (EIR) prepared on behalf of the Shacolas Group is listed as part of the 2008 EIRs on the Agriculture Ministry’s website.
The row between the Greens and Shacolas Group does not seem likely to end any time soon.
The Greens issued a further statement yesterday, expressing its defiance of any implied or explicit threat of libel action by Cyprus Limni Resorts in its newspaper announcement, and saying that responsibility for last week’s accident must not be subjected to “the usual cover-up”.
In a further challenge to Cyprus Limni Resorts, they said: “The company insists that it is carrying out an environmental project. Since when have golf-courses and the building of hundreds of holiday homes and hotels been an environmental project?”
