The Joint Action Platform for the Revival of the Urban Commercial Core of Every City has called, in a statement, for the reopening of Makarios Avenue and the restoration of two-way traffic along its southern section.
The Platform said that a decision taken a year ago by the Municipal Council to partially reopen Makarios Avenue to all vehicles remained trapped in the machinery of bureaucracy and ideological rigidity.
It described Makarios Avenue as a “dead zone” that deterred shoppers, with the result that two out of every three shops along it now stood empty.
The Platform also criticised the government for pursuing policies it said worked against small businesses, citing as an example the decision to grant, by way of exception, a licence for a further shopping mall in Limassol — a development it warned would deal a fatal blow to the city’s historic commercial centre.
