CAMPAIGN FOR A CLEAN AND DECENT PAPHOS

 Filenews 9 November 2020 - by Dora Christodoulou  

With a new, comprehensive and comprehensive plan, the Municipality of Paphos is stepping up its quest for a clean and decent city. In this context, it is already implementing in recent times the largest simultaneous cleanliness campaign to date, the "Cleanliness of the Decade", which began with the immediate removal of more than 1,200 trucks of soil, rubble and other small objects from open spaces in all districts of Paphos.

As municipal officials point out, in recent years more than 2,500 truckloads with inert materials have already been removed from the municipal area, as part of the effort to combat illegalities, by demolishing illegal premises and restoring the city's decorum.

In the light of this new effort, the largest and most extensive that takes place within the municipal area, the Municipality of Paphos once again expresses its determination to maintain the cleanliness of the city, by imposing strict out-of-court fines on those who break the law. Please note that in addition to out-of-court fines of €85, the Municipality of Paphos, with the authorisation of the Minister of Agriculture, may also issue fines ranging from €200 to €2,000 per case. At the same time, it calls on the public to take advantage of the Green Point, located in the District of Mouttalou, in order to deposit there useless objects and materials such as aluminium, glass, furniture, lamps, metal objects, batteries, wood, toys, bulky plastics, green-prunings, mattresses, cleaning materials fabrics, medicines, carpets, paper, cardboard, paints and D.I.Y.

"The Municipality of Paphos is doing its duty," the statement reads. "But it is also up to the citizen to take his share of responsibility and give the appropriate continuity while keeping the city clean, functional and decent."

The "Cleanness of the Decade" was considered necessary, since in the previous period even in the most central areas or in the heart of the tourist area of Paphos, it was found that the situation was reminiscent of landfills.

A more typical case of the ongoing operation to restore legality was the revelation that up to two green spaces were in place by the tourist road of Agios Antonios, without, until recently, their existence being known. These sites disappeared under a series of arbitrary interventions by private individuals, who built structures and walls, turned open areas into outdoor landfills and created a situation that only green spaces were not reminiscent of in previous years.

This situation caused the immediate mobilisation of the Municipality of Paphos which has already proceeded to the location, cleared the green spaces, restored their water supply and their conversion into normal green and rest zones.

Upgrading premises

Equally unusual situations are faced by municipal workers with regard to property regimes of premises that need immediate improvements for their aesthetic upgrading. In particular, cases of apartment buildings or housing complexes with owners amounting to 30, 50 or even 70 persons have been identified, which makes it difficult for them to take a decision, as required by the Municipality of Paphos, to carry out improvement projects in these premises in order to upgrade the area aesthetically in line with the wider area.

In such cases, the Municipal Authority has informed the owners that if they do not proceed immediately with restoration and aesthetic improvement work, the municipality will intervene with legal assistance and charge any work and legal costs to them.

The operation of the Municipality of Paphos to remove the illegalities in the heart of the tourist area of Kato Paphos will continue, while the Municipal Authority sends a clear message that "the ball will now be at the feet" of private individuals, who have to upgrade their own properties in order for the image of the city to be correspondingly good.

Credit to Christos Christou for his methodical approach

Municipal agents and citizens give credit to the head of the Agency, Christos Christou, for the methodical way in which this cleanliness is promoted this year, since unlike previous years the process is done by a method that does not allow the roads or open spaces to be "dirty" again after the cleaning crew has passed through there.

At the same time, the Municipality of Paphos has managed to greatly improve the image of the city and in terms of the collection of large objects in open spaces. The problem had taken on almost uncontrollable dimensions in Paphos after the problematic initial operation of the Green Points institution, resulting in every open space presenting until recently the image of a "dump", with discarded mattresses, furniture, electrical appliances and other kinds of aggregates.

The officials of the department and the Health and Cleanliness Committee of the Municipality of Paphos, stress, however, that every citizen of Paphos should take responsibility for the cleanliness in the place that concerns him, instead of throwing whatever useless object he wants to get rid of in the neighbour's plot.

"It is not possible to fill the districts of our city with discarded mattresses, beds, sofas, televisions, microwave ovens and other such materials, as if we were a garbage dump, whereas now there are the Green Spots," they concluded.