Jokingly called a promenade, the Mayor’s pride and joy, the path under construction across Protaras beach is an unmitigated disaster.
The path runs along the top of the beach alongside the beach front of the hotels on the seafront. The construction of the path, the noise and the dust, is causing a major nuisance to the beachfront hotels and their guests. Such is the level of the nuisance and the complaints tour operators are receiving, that major tour companies have threatened to pull out of Protaras.
Scant regard for health and safety. Power grinders used on the concrete, dust everywhere, no attempt to dampen down, the workmen wearing no protective gear. Silicosis anyone?
Scant regard for the beach-front hotels and their clients. One morning a digger excavating the foundation for a shower-toilet block which when complete will obstruct the view from Sunrise Beach Hotel.
The path will focus walkers along the boundary of beachfront hotels. Ideal opportunity for thieves to nip in and out, snatch belongings by sunbeds.
The beach at Protaras is only a thin strip. The path is encroaching upon the beach. In parts there is significant encroachment on the beach.
It used to be possible to walk along the waters edge, look up at the hotel and see the grass of the hotels tumbling down to the beach. Now all one sees is an ugly concrete wall.
The pathway from Protaras to Perneria was constructed a few years ago. No problem with the path per se. It is well constructed and of good design. The only problem is the wrong path in the wrong place. It replaced a lovely sandy track which dipped down to the rock pools. As one approaches Protaras along the path a lovely view of the bay, or there was, now obstructed by wooden shacks alongside the pier.
There appears to be not a disliike but a strong hatred of the natural world.
Concrete and decking covers wave cut platforms in the low lying rocks. Before Vrissiana Beach Hotel was the rare remnants of Mediterranean flora that was once common. This has been all but wiped out, what little remains isolated from the beach by a concrete wall. Before it was protected by a wooden fence and had the opportunity to expand into the beach. At the Ayia Napa end of Fig Tree Bay a cliff has been destroyed, a cliff that in spring was carpetted with Hotentot Fig and wild onions in flower.
The concept of a 12-kilometre Kapparis to Cape Greko coastal path was an excellent one, but not the way it has been implimented. The obvious model, the South West Coastal Path along the coast of Dorset, Devon, Cornwall and Somerset. What was needed was waymarking and rights of way, not concrete.
If nothing else, the path makes an excellent cycleway. The irony is cyclists are barred from using it!
What we have is an unmitigated disaster, an appalling waste of public money. The project cost is an unbelievable 3 million euros!
Public money could be better spent. The road through Protaras needs landscaping, trees for shade. The fountains either end are sitting derelict. The path on main road that bypasses Protaras is in an appalling state of repair, as is the cycleway.
Has money been allocated for the repair and maintenance of the path? If not, in ten years time it will be in a poor state of repair.
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