Police can avoid IKEA stampede

Sir,
Your story “Nicosia braced for worse traffic jams” (August 19) has a resonance with UK citizens who have witnessed new IKEA store openings.

The Swedish retailer established its first outlet in eastern England in the 1990s on a retail park adjacent to the M621 motorway on the outskirts of Leeds at a place called Birstall.

West Yorkshire Police anticipated, correctly, that there would be massive consumer interest in the IKEA store, which had the potential for traffic chaos so they drew up an action plan to minimise disruption to the road network surrounding Leeds (population 750,000).

This involved lane closures and traffic diversions, details of which were printed in the local press, yet there were still long tailbacks as families tried to get their first glimpse of an IKEA.

However, traffic was properly managed by police and for more than just the opening day. Gridlock was avoided.

No matter in which country IKEA has put its footprint, there has been a massive traffic surge in the first week or so.

Why should Cyprus buck that trend? If no one comes up with an action plan pretty quickly, the result will surely be a Nicosia “hell” for motorists early next month. But it needn’t be that way, as the Leeds IKEA opening proved.

John Thorpe, MBE
Limassol and Leeds

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.