New Phuket provincial hall plan is dead

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New Phuket provincial hall plan is dead
Naraporn Tuarob


The 100-year-old Provincial Hall will remain in use.

PHUKET: The plan to build a new, larger and more modern Provincial Hall to replace the original 100-year-old building is officially dead, killed off by stout local opposition in public hearings.

Instead, it is hoped to build a new multi-department government complex, probably on Soi Palian, close to the Phuket Provincial Attorney’s Office and not far away from the Governor’s Mansion.

The movement to block the new Provincial Hall came to a head on March 4 when 200 people led by Suratin Liam-Udom, a former Mayor of Rassada, and Rangsan Kongthong, a former member of the Phuket Provincial Council, went to the provincial hall with placards and banners, complaining that the new hall would mean they would lose the use of the Sanam Chai public playing fields.

Vice Governor Jamroen Thippayapongthada was in charge of getting the new Provincial Hall built, and is now charged with coming up with an alternative.

He told The Phuket News today (September 10) after he returned from a meeting in Bangkok yesterday, “This [the new Government centre] is just a proposal after the new Provincial Hall project failed. Thank you to the Phuket people for that,” he added.

“The Government centre will act in a similar way to the government complex in Bangkok that houses representatives of every ministry.

“This centre will work alongside the [existing] Provincial Hall, which will remain in use.

“But first, we have to get approval and the budget, because the [b450 million] budget that was originally allocated for the new Provincial Hall project has now been diverted to Ubon Ratchathani Province.”

The Provincial Hall, which was completed exactly 100 years ago, is too small to contain the island’s bureaucrats in the comfort they deserve, so the proposal is to move many of them out to the new government complex, which will work as “a sub-ordinated centre apart from the Provincial hall”, V/Gov Jamroen explained.

He said that although the site for the new complex has been tentatively identified, discussions continue, and “nothing has been confirmed definitely”.

Source: http://www.thephuketnews.com/new-phuket-provincial-hall-plan-is-dead-41823.php


-- Phuket News 2013-09-11