LANGKAWI, Dec 29 — A two-kilometre road spanning along Cenang Beach, one of the top tourist spots here, will be turned into a one-way lane effective Dec 31.

Langkawi district officer, Isahak Murat said with the new ruling, road users could only enter the beach road from the Bohor Tempoyak-Kuala Muda-Airport Road and exit at Pantai Tengah Road.

“For the initial period, traffic policemen and MPLBP (Langkawi Tourism City Municipal Council) enforcement personnel will be at both ends of Cenang Road to assist road users to comply with the new ruling,” he said when met today.

The Cenang Road came under the limelight over the last few weeks due to upgrading works being carried out there and the Langkawi Tourism Association (LTA) claimed that the situation had drawn negative remarks from tourists.

LTA chairman, Zainudin Kadir who lodged a police report on the project delay and inconvenience yesterday, wants the authorities to speed up the works or risk seeing it affecting the image of Langkawi as a tourism destination.

Isahak said the ruling to turn the Cenang stretch into a one-way street was already decided upon during the planning period of the upgrading works and should not be seen as a reaction to the police report lodged by Zainudin.

He said the road upgrading project was part of the overall infrastructural development of the Cenang area which also involved the construction of an alternative dual-carriageway, pedestrian walkway, waterfront and a public square.

On the upgrading works which were supposed to be completed in June this year, he said the state government would make a decision on the matter today to ensure that the project would be completed before the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace (LIMA) exhibition.

“The project which was supposed to be 94 per cent completed by Dec 10 had only reached 72 per cent by then,” he said.

According to him, the state government would normally consider several options, including termination of the work contract, to deal with companies which failed to deliver their projects on time. — Bernama