The Larnaca Municipality is considering opening a new indoor municipal theatre in the area near the town’s oil refineries, Mayor Andreas Vyras said on Wednesday.

Speaking to the Cyprus News Agency (CNA), Vyras said “there is a proposal for the construction of a new indoor municipal theatre which will be built on land which will be allocated to the municipality after the oil companies move out.”

He said that there had initially been plans to build a theatre in the Pampoula area in the centre of the town, but that the process of acquiring publicly owned land in that area would have been overly difficult.

As a result, he said the municipality will instead be granted land by the oil companies on the road between Larnaca and Dhekelia. This land will be granted in exchange for the licencing of private developments at Vasiliko when they move their operations to the energy centre there.

This proposal, he said, will take place considering the Larnaca Municipality’s merger with the Livadia Municipality and the Oroklini village community as part of larger local government reforms taking place in Cyprus in 2024.

“The construction of the new theatre will serve all three constituencies of the new municipality,” he said.

He added that the proposal has been approved by Larnaca’s town council, and that the municipality aims to seek funding from the European Union to help construct the theatre, given the town’s candidacy to be European Capital of Culture in 2030.

In addition, he said his municipality aims to renovate the town’s existing Georgios Lykourgos municipal theatre and the Skala theatre.