Demolishing the historic British Embassy to make way for a shopping center

[Thaifriends]

5 hours ago, watcharacters said:

 

Turning the building into a  small hotel would have been a much better option.

 

Hate to see history just torn down to make room for bland concrete.

 

 

 

Remember in this building they must be planning on how to control the country

[Dogmatix]

10 minutes ago, watcharacters said:

 

Your point makes sense to me.     Maybe the British government simply wanted the cash ASAP.    A lease would have been good for retaining the land but sadly that wouldn't have mattered in terms of saving a beautiful  historical building.

A good point, since Thai property companies sell 30 year leases for the same price as freeholds and much of the development in the area is on 30 year leases on land owned by the CPB, Chula Uni etc. But the British government would have argued there are not in the property business and if they could say they got one penny more for the freehold as opposed to the lease, that would be good enough for them.  But truly the rent reversion in 30 years time would be huge and would pay a lot of embassy expenses.

[RJRS1301]

1 minute ago, nong38 said:

When the PM goes on about traditions and customs I  can see that but it seems that buildings don't even rate, there its all about money making things round, it should have been a listed building, they would take a different view with Temples would they not, very sad demise of a wonderful old style building.

Nothing to do with the PM, the embassy is considered part of the "country" it represents.

Buildings have a "use by date"

The gardens are a great loss, and possibly could have some heritage value, but at the end of the day the British Government decided to take the money for the land value

 

[cmsally]

The first sale was for the chunk of land at the front where the hotel and Central Embassy Mall now stand. It looked as though the back piece was a done deal as there was a Central walkway over Rama 1/Chidlom entrance of the embassy between their malls. It struck me how weird it was and something normally out of the question due to security. It seemed obvious a deal had been done already for the whole chunk of property.

 

[RJRS1301]

4 minutes ago, Thaifriends said:

Remember in this building they must be planning on how to control the country

Which country

UK cannot even control itself and never was a official colonial suppressor of the Thai

[Jai Dee]

A number of off-topic and troll posts have been removed.

[Vacuum]

36 minutes ago, Almer said:

sold,  define the word sold, you can walk around any Mall , a few people walking taking pictures of themselves outside a designer store but very few carrying anything other than there photo phone

Would for display/sale suit you better? 

[kevinmartyn]

Yes! We British know how utterly broke the United Kingdom now is to have sold this British "Asset" in Wireless Road! Shit it was owned by the British people. Really does Bangkok really need another shopping Mall, and high rise condominium. It's so sad the present Thai Government! allowed this catastrophic disarray to happen. It should have preserved and made a world heritage site!

[geoffbezoz]

2 hours ago, zydeco said:

Thailand is no longer important to the British. And the British are no longer important to Thailand.

Very true yet the UK is now of no importance to anybody, not just Thailand.

[Aforek]

32 minutes ago, possum1931 said:

British history is nothing to be proud of, about two thirds of the world will vouch for that.

I am not British, I spoke of historic monuments or buildings in general, which have a past, like the Buddhas of Bamyan in Afghanistan who  were destroyed by the Talibans 

[Thaifriends]

3 hours ago, sanemax said:

No, they are not ( I was referring to the new owners)

Historically, UK govt has been in opium business as well

[30la]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

The embassy has been sold to Central to make way for retail space. 

It seems that you still don't have enough mall centers, who do you think has the money to spend on these super and countless shops?

[Thaifriends]

1 minute ago, Aforek said:

I am not British, I spoke of historic monuments or buildings in general, which have a past, like the Buddhas of Bamyan in Afghanistan who  were destroyed by the Talibans 

Bamiyan, those were made at time when UK did not even existed and were dark ages. Means eating full chicken with one hand. Pretty proud to steal the jewels on the walls of Taj Mahal

[geoffbezoz]

5 minutes ago, kevinmartyn said:

Yes! We British know how utterly broke the United Kingdom now is to have sold this British "Asset" in Wireless Road! Shit it was owned by the British people. Really does Bangkok really need another shopping Mall, and high rise condominium. It's so sad the present Thai Government! allowed this catastrophic disarray to happen. It should have preserved and made a world heritage site!

Don't worry, after Brexit, if it happens, I suspect the whole of the UK ( as it is now, not after unification of Ireland and independence for Scotland and Wales) will become one world heritage site highlighting the final capitulation of what once was the worlds greatest empire.

[ballpoint]

As recent events have shown, having had no qualms about selling the people of Hong Kong to the Chinese, the British government is hardly going to care about what happens to some bricks and mortar.

[Thaifriends]

16 minutes ago, RJRS1301 said:

Which country

UK cannot even control itself and never was a official colonial suppressor of the Thai

Answer is with you. These diplomats must be impotent for the job at that time for TH

[FarFlungFalang]

3 minutes ago, ballpoint said:

As recent events have shown, having had no qualms about selling the people of Hong Kong to the Chinese, the British government is hardly going to care about what happens to some bricks and mortar.

I thought the British Government leased Hong Kong from the Chinese and therefore never owned it let alone owning the people of Hong Kong then selling them to the Chinese,that would be human trafficking.

[RJRS1301]

14 minutes ago, 30la said:

It seems that you still don't have enough mall centers, who do you think has the money to spend on these super and countless shops?

The Chinese and Indian tourists?
 

[dabhand]

33 minutes ago, Dogmatix said:

They sold the land of the original embassy on the river, which was the centre of Bangkok then, to the Siamese government as the King wished to build his new General Post Office there. The proceeds would have been more than enough to buy the land on Ploenchit from Nai Lert which was only rice fields out in the sticks at the time.  Probably a bridging loan was arranged by Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. Presumably the original money to buy the land on the river from the King I think was British taxpayers money.  Not sure how things worked then. With colonies in India, Burma, Singapore and Malaya possibly funds were transferred from one of the colonies. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embassy_of_the_United_Kingdom,_Bangkok

 

Seems the original land, by the river, was gifted to the Brits by King Mongkut, sometime after 1856. Then sold around 1922 for £110,000 which was then used to acquire the Wireless Road land and construct the original Embassy buildings. Overall, a nice little earner for the Brits, especially given that it all stemmed from a gift. Money grabbing comes to mind.......

[RJRS1301]

12 minutes ago, Thaifriends said:

Answer is with you. These diplomats must be impotent for the job at that time for TH

I was asking to which country you were referring 

Ambassadors do their jobs irrespective of the building in which they are housed, and represent their respective government to the host country

[CharlieH]

Reported post and responses removed.

[StevieAus]

6 hours ago, Aforek said:

Always sad to see historic buildings demolished

they are often beautiful and have a history ( our history ! ) 

It has happened in Sydney over the years beautiful old buildings demolished, where the Regent Theatre used to stand is now a McDonald’s.

Many of the old laneways between streets, that gave the city character sold off to developers.

If it had happened in Paris they would have been blockading the city.

 

[rgraham]

And life goes on.

[justin case]

thailand, the country with not enough shopping centers...

[geoffbezoz]

1 minute ago, justin case said:

thailand, the country with not enough shopping centers...

Well, Napoleon once said that England was a nation of shopkeepers. Maybe Thailand is attempting to emulate England (United Kingdom) ?

[Georgie65]

LMAO!!!!!!!!

[nong38]

44 minutes ago, FarFlungFalang said:

I thought the British Government leased Hong Kong from the Chinese and therefore never owned it let alone owning the people of Hong Kong then selling them to the Chinese,that would be human trafficking.

You are correct the UK did lease Hong Kong, the Chinese decided that the lease would not be renewed and it was agreed in 1984 that the Colony would revert to China in 1997.

China in the transfer agreed to uphold the values enjoyed by the people of Hong Kong for 50 years.

[007 RED]

6 hours ago, watcharacters said:

 

Turning the building into a  small hotel would have been a much better option.

 

Hate to see history just torn down to make room for bland concrete.

 

 

 

I totally agree, its sad to see it go.  I'm sure that the ambassador's residence would have made a nice restaurant, as they did with the old Russian Embassy on Sathorn Road which is now owned and run by the W Hotel next door.

[007 RED]

5 hours ago, gregchambers said:

The new PM, Boris Johnson, probably won't be amused as he is a good friend of former PM Abhisit and was probably planning to lounge around in the embassy... but you can imagine Madame May being keen on dumbing down the presence in Bangkok.

 

FYI.....  It may surprise you to learn that it was in fact the Right Honourable Horrible Boris Johnson, who in his position as Foreign Secretary, agreed to the sale of the British Embassy in Bangkok.

 

At the time of the announcement of the sale Boris' stated that the money raised from the sale would be used to renovate other embassies around the world.  The projects which he mentioned included new electrical wiring in the Paris Embassy, refurbishment of the Cairo and New Dehli Embassies. 

 

Boris also stated that the sale price of the Embassy represented more than a third of the Foreign and Commonwealth Offices annual core budget.

[claynlr]

24 minutes ago, 007 RED said:

FYI.....  It may surprise you to learn that it was in fact the Right Honourable Horrible Boris Johnson, who in his position as Foreign Secretary, agreed to the sale of the British Embassy in Bangkok.

 

At the time of the announcement of the sale Boris' stated that the money raised from the sale would be used to renovate other embassies around the world.  The projects which he mentioned included new electrical wiring in the Paris Embassy, refurbishment of the Cairo and New Dehli Embassies. 

 

Boris also stated that the sale price of the Embassy represented more than a third of the Foreign and Commonwealth Offices annual core budget.

The slamming of Trump is takin a break from my British cousins due to another fall of the British Empire. Just joking guys, I know this kinda stuff really knots your knickers