Uni says Limassol park and ride proposal ‘illegal’
Limassol mayor Yiannis Armeftis’ proposal for a park and ride service to be opened in his city is “illegal”, Cyprus University of Technology (Tepak) employees’ trade union Sap-Tepak said on Wednesday.
Following an extraordinary meeting of Sap-Tepak’s secretariat, it said Armeftis is “completely ignoring the university’s decisions, strategic planning and property rights”, and that he “considers that he may have the right to use a space which was given to the university by a state decision to cover its suffocating housing needs.”
The fury centres around Armeftis’ plans for the park-and-ride service to terminate at Limassol’s old hospital in the centre of the city. But the old hospital was handed over to Tepak in 2023.
As such, Sap-Tepak argues, Armeftis has no right to use the site without the university’s permission.
“By undermining our city’s leading educational institution’s urgent development needs, [Armeftis] is insisting on the implementation of an illegal decision, seriously affecting the university’s development plan,” Sap-Tepak added.
It also said that despite “both private and public opposition” expressed by the university to the plans, “[Armeftis] is inexplicably sticking to his position”, and has also put the issue on the agenda of the Limassol city council’s next session.
“At the same time, by linking the issue to Limassol’s wider traffic problem, he is covertly trying to bring it into the sphere of public debate, trying to overturn the achievements of many years of hard work and negotiations,” they said.
The union concluded, “this venture is doomed to failure and we expect the city council to solemnly vote down this illegal proposal.”