Members of the House transport committee on Friday carried out a visit to various infrastructure projects in the Paphos district to check on their progress.

Committee chairman and Dipa MP Marinos Mousiouttas spoke during the visit, saying the road linking Paphos and its airport “needs immediate improvement, and adding that efforts need to be made to complete a planned new road to the airport”.

“Unfortunately, the problems related to environmental issues remain,” he said, adding that he hopes they will be “overcome soon”.

Meanwhile, Akel MP Valentinos Fakondis lamented the fact that plans to build a bridge to connect the industrial areas of the villages of Mesogi and Tremithousa have “been on hold since 2011”.

“This project has been announced twice in the last two years, and yet no contractor has been found to build it,” he said.

He added that this project “should begin immediately” so as to “free the Tremithousa industrial area from the traffic congestion which is burdening it”.

“Tenders must definitely be re-announced with terms which will be attractive to bidders,” he said.

Disy MP Charalambos Pazaros commented on efforts to widen the road between Kato Paphos and Coral Bay, saying that “this is a project which has been planned for 40 years and remains only on paper”.

He added that meetings have been held on the matter in recent years, and said he hopes that next year, there will be money in the state budget for the matter to formally go out to tender and for work to begin.

“I hope we can achieve this goal, so that this very important project, which concerns a central, arterial road in the Paphos district, can be achieved and begun for the benefit of both locals and foreign visitors,” he said.

“Paphos hosts about two million tourists per year, and all of these tourists pass through this road, either with private vehicles or by bus,” he said.

Ierokipia mayor Nikos Palios attended the visits with the committee and said that the project to install streetlights on the road from the Anarita turn to Paphos airport will begin in the last quarter of next year.

He added that before the end of this year, a new regulatory plan will be commissioned to improve the road to the airport.

This, he said, “means that the five million people who use Paphos airport per year will be able to travel on a more comfortable, safer, and shorter road, while the development of the local economy will also be helped”.