Phuket hillside excavation under investigation
The Phuket News


Officials toil their way up the steep site with its views of Patong Bay.

PHUKET: -- Officials yesterday (August 7) visited a large plot of seaview land on the hill next to 50 Pi Rd in Patong which, it was claimed, had been excavated without permits. Some of the land is also over the 80-metre limit.

After a complaint from local people, the Chief of the Damrongdharm Centre, Prapan Kanprasaeng, led a delegation of officials from the Land Office, the Patong Municipality, Kathu District and the Public Works Department to inspect the site. Vice-Governor Somkiet Sangkhaosuttirak was also present.

Patong Municipality ordered a halt to the excavation on July 22.

A municipal official explained, “In 30 days, they can ask for permission to excavate [the part of the] land that is not over 80 meters above sea level.”

However, he added, “They will soon face charges. Excavating without a permit is illegal.

“Moreover, after checking with the Public Works Department, we found that [some of the] land is 125 meters above sea level, which is over the legal limit. Patong Municipality have stopped them from doing any more work.”

Mr Prapan asked the Land Office to check the land against the NorSor3 Kor paper to see whether or not the excavations had gone beyond the borders defined in the land paper.

He also asked officials to check whether any natural watercourses have been altered during the digging. If this is found to be the case, Kathu District will report the matter to the police.

Local authorities are expected to report their findings every 15 days to Governor Maitri Inthusut.

As usual, the names of the people carrying out the illegal excvtion were not mentioned.

Source: http://www.thephuketnews.com/phuket-hillside-excavation-under-investigation-47751.php

[pn]2014-08-08[/pn]

Which (former) politician is behind this project? I can't see a normal land developer being able to get this far without having some local influence.  45 metres above 80 metres is definitely pretty easy to spot.

Where we live the land is 152 metres AMSL and backing on to the Mae Wong national park and we had no problems building 10 years ago.

 

A great deal of the Thai countryside is higher than 80 metres AMSL. Mind you we are about 500 km from the sea in Khampaeng Phet province.

This slander libel law. Needs to be removed. It was only put in place, to protect the corrupt.

There's excavation work on BIG piece of land above Phuket Fantasea in Kamala, must be at least 100m....