TALA COMMUNITY COUNCIL - UPDATE ON SEVERAL ISSUES INCLUDING TALA SQUARE
In response to various questions, and attempt to push for a public meeting regarding the square, the Council has responded to various questions - their replies are in italics
- Tala
Square
There are a lot of rumours circulating
about the plans of the Council regarding the Square. Could you please
advise
- What the council wishes to
change or demolish as regards the square?
- Still pending the final decision of the Council.
Whenever this is final, we will inform the residents in detail.
- Why the council wishes to
change the square? There is an under-used amphitheatre with car
parking on the outskirts of the village, and parking within the village is
limited.
- This was a pre-election
commitment of the Moukhtar and the majority of the Council's members. We
believe that the changes will upgrade the square and make it more
functional.
- Why there has been no public
meeting to see and discuss the plans or listen to objections regarding the
plans for the square?
- There will be a meeting as mentioned above with a
presentation of the final plan.
- What approvals and permits
have been applied for regarding the changes to the square?
- Nothing yet.
- Why the Council wishes to take
any action and go against the express wishes of the Late Archbishop who
was born in Tala and who stated that he wished to create a square to join
together two places of worship? The Late Archbishop also made it
clear that the Church would take back the square from the village if
attempts were made to change it.
- We are
asking the people to wait until they see the final plan as we believe
that this, not only will be against his wishes, on the contrary will be a
significant improvement of what he had in mind. Besides, whatever the
final plan is, will need it to be signed by his successor
Archbishop.
- What costs are envisaged for
such changes?
- We can not answer that for now
as we didn't finalize the plan. However, there will be a 70% co-grant by
the Government.
- The construction was for a
pedestrianised square, ie not substantial to allow traffic flow again as
services are buried below the surface. As other communities proceed
to pedestrianise their own squares, why is Tala Council going against the
flow?
- Again, please wait until the final presentation.
- As a Government grant was
obtained for a substantial amount of the cost of the pedestrianisation of
the square, what amount will have to be repaid to the Government if the
Council changes the square? Government funding amounted to €404,000
for the first phase of the square. The total cost of phases 1 and 2
was around €1.3m, of which Tala paid 30%, with the rest being Government
funds and with some EU funding for phase 2
- First of all, there was no EU funding at all. As we
mention above, not only the Government will claim any amount back from
the previous funding but they will co-grant the new plan by 70%.
- Has the Church agreed to any
changes proposed as the Church retains the Title to the square?
- Yes
- Are the council aware that
there was no permit for the road across the square which existed before
the pedestriansation occurred?
- The road across the square was, and still is,
officially registered on the topographical map of the Department of Lands
and Surveys.
An online petition was created in August
2025 protesting about any change to the square and to date has 1884 signatures.
In addition, there was a paper petition in support of the objections by
Voukani Restaurant which raised 165 signatures. Any rumours that there
are no objections is clearly untrue.
Members of the Council are also probably
unaware that Tala Square appears regularly in programmes promoting Cyprus.
It is seen as a very pretty square and a good advertisement for the
village of Tala.
No
comment
- Water
1 When is it the Council’s
intention to connect up the new water tank constructed near Tala
Amphitheatre?
End of April beginning of May
2 What is happening regarding replacement
of pipework which is essential given the number of leaks, bursts, etc?
According to rumour Kamares is the next area for the replacement pipes
but when will this work commence?
End of May beginning of June
- Refuse
- Could the council advise why
they purchased a refuse truck and did not participate in the collection
scheme with the other members of the cluster?
- The Council decided to implement this in a pilot basis
for one year in order to see the cost and the quality of the service. Now
the Cluster are asking for bids from private companies. We will evaluate
both options and make the best decision.
- Why was this truck purchased
when effectively it will be obsolete when the ‘pay as you throw’ scheme
comes into effect?
- It's been now two years since the Cluster was called by
the Department of Environment to work together for implementation of the
P.A.Y.T. program. For some reason we don't know, the process is frozen.
Therefore, the purchase of the truck was not wrong.
- Tala now has a poorer service than previously – there are now no collections on bank holidays, whereas there were very few occasions when the previous collectors failed to collect on bank holidays
- At the past, many times we have experienced situations
that the private company was leaving behind whole areas uncollected. We
do not agree that the service now is poorer than previously. Moreover, on
bank holidays were asking for extra payments.
- Tala
Amphitheatre and Cafe
1. On what grounds was the
rental of the amphitheatre increased to €800? This seems a blatant
anti-expat move on the part of the council given that it is only the expats
that pay any rental – any events arranged for the Cypriots are ‘free’ events
and paid for by the council.
1. The Council decided to increase the rental to €800 apparently
because they consider the rental very low. The charge is for all the events and
there is no discrimination. The only exception is for charity events.
2. Regarding the
amphitheatre cafe, why was there no tender process in March 2025 which would
have allowed the existing tenant to participate in the procedure?
Instead, they were given notice to quit and left in August.
1. This is not true. Last October, there was a public call for
tenders.
3. Regarding the
amphitheatre cafe, there are rumours that a new tenant has been found that will
use the premises for retail purposes. This seems a strange step to take
given that the cafe was there as a facility for amphitheatre attendees in the
main, and now means that attendees will take their own cool boxes of food and
drink into the shows – given the construction of the amphitheatre [steep steps,
no rails, no lighting on the steps], this adds to the hazards as the steps are
steep, and refuse left results in a risk of slips, as does excessive
consumption of alcohol
1. According to the terms of the contract, the former
amphitheatre cafe, now it will function as a canteen. No alcohol, no food
preparation.
