OWNERS of hotels, tourist apartments and other businesses along the Tombs of the Kings road in Paphos, outraged that long-running roadworks will continue until the end of the year, have begged local authorities to stop work for the summer months.
“I’m just totally fed up,” said one local businessman, who runs a pub in the area.
“Enough is enough. I can’t see my business making it through the summer at this rate. This road situation will most probably finish us off,” added the man who didn’t wish to be identified.
But despite the pleas for work to stop for June, July and August, Eftychious Malakides, the district engineer of SABBA, the sewerage board said: “This is just not possible.”
But SABBA have said that during the summer months they will do their best to concentrate on areas where there aren’t any tourists, hotels or hotel apartments. Where possible, traffic will be diverted north.
The second phase of upgrading Paphos’ sewerage system directly affects the main coastal route of the town, starting from the Tombs of the Kings road and passing through Kissonerga, Chlorakas and Emba.
In addition to the SABBA works, there are also major disruptions as work continues on the second part of the north circular ring road.
Furious motorists, and angry residents and business owners have sent complaints flooding into Paphos municipality and SABBA sewerage board, as impatience grows over the works.
The Mayor of Paphos and president of SABBA, Savvas Vergas, visited several of the worst-hit areas last week and said work should be speeded up to end the misery caused to motorists by endless road works, diversions and potholes in the roads.
“As the bad weather has now passed, contractors have no excuse for delays in the work,” he said, adding that the municipality will issue warnings, and if this failed to bring results then the local authorities were prepared to take “drastic measures”.
Extensive works mean that many main roads and side roads are closed to traffic and motorists must negotiate their way around diversions, sometimes along roads filled with potholes, rocks and trenches.
For Roulla Stefanou, who works at a mailbox company in the area, her journey to work each day is a fraught one.
“I have never seen anything like it,”’ she said. “You can’t imagine the stress these works cause me on a daily basis.”
Each day Stefanou has to negotiate the mayhem, trying to find a route to work which changes daily.
“The other day I was so late for work. Two of the diversion routes were incorrect and led to dead ends, I got lost. This is ridiculous; I live in Paphos and have done for years. I can’t imagine what’s going to happen when visitors try to travel our roads, the situation is a disaster.”
One reservation staff member of a five-star hotel in the area, said: “this is definitely affecting us and I think it will only get worse in the coming months.”
Stefanou said she couldn’t understand why there is work is going on in numerous places at once.
“I don’t understand why the work isn’t organised properly and why one area can’t be completed before another one is opened up.”
The bus company Aleppa, meanwhile, has complained that their buses are finding it hard to manoeuvre through narrow lanes where traffic has been diverted, away from the main road.
The mayor did offer some better news during his roadworks visit last week. He said that although works on the second part of the north circular ring road were experiencing some problems, he was hopeful that within the next two months, part of it would be open to two way traffic.
