Pattaya has begun demolishing bridges blocking a crucial drainage canal in South Pattaya.
City legal chief Sretapol Boonsawat led a team of engineers and authorities to the Bali Hai Pier area July 27 to follow up warnings issued to business and home owners encroaching on public land.
Targeted was the Siam Bayshore hotel, which for years has been under notice to remove a footbridge. The Bayshore and the Bay View hotels have stalled and received numerous stays as Pattaya focused its encroachment efforts on smaller landowners and squatters.
Now that that nearly all of those have been removed, the spotlight returned to the big hotel, which sent a regional manager to meet with city officials.
Saran Nimihut again expressed the hotel’s willingness to cooperate and claimed the bridge would be removed in 30 days. Work has already begun and would take several days to complete.
The wooden bridge connects the Bayshore’s Ocean and Garden wing and is two meters wide and 28 meters long. It is completely covered with a roof, which is why the hotel said there have been delays.
The hotel already has applied to create a new bridge 10 meters from the old one that won’t violate the law.
The Bali Hai Plaza, former home to the Mixx discotheque, is now 90 percent demolished after it too spent years avoiding government authority. Signs have been erected along the canal warning anyone else thinking of building on the vital drainage canal not to build there.
