Seventeen months after an illegal bridge across the South Pattaya flood-drainage canal was ordered demolished, is still standing and progress to remove it standing still.
Pattaya and Marine Department officials are pointing fingers at each other for the delay, each claiming it’s the others responsibility to remove the bridge built by a renegade property owner to facilitate access to his construction site. As both government offices squabble, the land owner actually has made improvements to the bridge area, adding facilities and a tent.
Area business owners – some of which already were forced to demolish structures encroaching on the canal – planned to meet with Pattaya city officials Nov. 18 to demand action.
The bridge was cited in June 2018 after Pattaya began a project to widen the canal to allow better floodwater drainage in the city. A property owner building a commercial building objected and refused to remove the bridge.
Pattaya ordered construction on the building stopped as it did not have a permit and the landowner fought back, turning the construction site into a parking lot. He claimed that in July this year he got ‘special’ permission from a city official to allow the lot to open.
