Pafos Live 19 July 2025
Paphos is a city with history and memory. It is a city that stands out from the rest, and the Municipality of Paphos is not just another municipality in Cyprus. Paphos and by extension the Metropolitan Municipality of Paphos, is a place where stone, the sea, light and people form an identity that exists, is formed and travels through the centuries. Paphos, with its rich cultural heritage, its glorious past and its promising future, forms a strongly distinct position from the rest of the cities, stands out for its rare beauty and its hospitable citizens and for this reason it binds us, so that we have a responsibility to reflect on the one hand and act with awareness of the times we live in and the future we seek on the other.
Today's Paphos is not the same as the one we remember twenty years ago. The city has changed and our goal is to change even more. The population increased, the neighbourhoods became densified, the contrasts increased. Our society has acquired new characteristics: more visitors, more permanent residents, locals and from third countries, more pupils, more students, more businesses, more cars, more requirements for organisation and functionality. And yet, our institutional armour has remained stagnant. It has remained almost the same except in a few cases.
There is no self-respecting European city without an effective system of supervision, control and day-to-day care of public spaces. In Paphos, problems related to the quality of life and the functionality of the city are increasing. Arbitrary parking, noise pollution, abandonment of plots and buildings, occupation of sidewalks and abandoned infrastructure, pollution, incomplete care of common areas, unaccountability in the use of public spaces, destruction and vandalism of public parks and public infrastructure – all these are daily phenomena that cause disappointment to citizens and alter the character of our city. There is no lack of will. What is missing, I think, is the appropriate mechanism.
The Traffic Police of the Municipality of Paphos has carried out and continues to carry out a very important work over time, under conditions of limited resources, but also of responsibilities. Its people know the fabric of the city, the needs, the pathogens and the particularities of each neighborhood. It is precisely this experience that can and must be the basis for its transformation into a modern Municipal Police – with more responsibilities, with strengthened human resources, with targeted training and administrative upgrade.
The need for the establishment of a Municipal Police is not a party position. Undoubtedly, I believe that it is now an institutional need. It is not an expression of authoritarianism or a longing for power by anyone. The municipal police should be a tool of the democratic order. A protection tool. Not repression – but prevention, presence and responsibility towards the citizens and our city. The Municipal Police can function as an extension of society itself, with a clean face, with professionalism and transparency. Not opposite the citizen, but next to him.
We are not asking for a police state. We ask for daily care for everything that today is left to fate and the hard work of the workers of the Municipality. It is not normal in a mature society, which lives in a city of culture, which has a course of 3000 years, a tourist and intellectual city par excellence, that we have not yet acquired the required education and respect for public property, the environment and the neighbour. We should not make sure that the streets and sidewalks are kept clean, that the chaos of parking is perpetuated, that dangerous premises are ignored, that serious complaints are not followed. It is not acceptable that the operation of the city depends only on the Municipal machine, on the zeal of the workers of the Municipality, on any officials or on opportunistic campaigns.
Incidents of juvenile delinquency, racism and intimidation, incidents of destruction and vandalism in public parks and public places, as well as the development of fear among citizens constitute the declining picture that we see daily in our city. The recent fire incident in a well-known apartment building and area of Paphos is another resounding reminder of what it means to lack control. It's not the problem, it's the symptom. Abandonment has no nationality, degradation knows no language. Citizens quite simply, do not feel safe. Drugs, road accidents every day, attempts, murders, fires, thefts. The demand for rules, for dignity, for safety, is universal. And it is the responsibility of the Municipality to defend it.
The Municipal Police can be the mechanism that, with professionalism and consistency, will ensure the implementation of regulations, the protection of public spaces, the orderliness of everyday life. With a presence on the street, not in the office. With discretion, but also with determination. With respect to rights, but also insistence on the fulfilment of the obligations of each of us. Its duties may include the supervision of parking, the enforcement of municipal regulations for the observance of cleanliness and noise pollution, the identification of abandoned or dangerous premises, the intervention in cases of arbitrary occupation of public or private spaces, but also the daily presence in the neighbourhoods as a channel of communication and observer of social reality.
Paphos must be shielded. Not against the "other", but against abandonment. I repeat: The citizens of Paphos, we do not feel safe. The Municipality must acquire a voice and hands where silence and absence prevail today. Social cohesion is not a given. Maintaining order and protecting the public interest requires constant effort, requires institutions, requires presence and trust.
We are not claiming a Paphos that will be frightening. We don't want a police-controlled city. We want a Paphos that respects its citizens, and respects itself. A city that is functional, welcoming, clean and safe. A city where the public interest will not be an abstract concept, but an everyday practice. And in this effort, the Municipal Police is now a necessary step. He has a huge role to play. It has a very rich past that it must protect and a very bright future that it must ensure for our city.
Philip Th. Philippou
Civil Engineer
Municipal Councillor of EDEK in the Municipality of Paphos
