Group urges BMA to clean up Victory Monument area
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A civic group - We Love Victory Monument Group - yesterday joined calls for the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) to improve environmental conditions, citizen safety, and traffic flow around the Victory Monument area.
The move follows complaints that the area is full of street vendors, street bars, legal and illegal public van stations, and general untidiness.
“There is no public space nor parks for people to use for social activities and to relax in this area,” Rachapol Kraijirachote, a member of the We Love Victory Monument Group, told The Nation.
Previously, BMA had granted a nine-year-concession to a private company to develop landscapes in four areas surrounding Victory Monument. BMA now plans to continue the concession with the private company to renovate the area.
It had developed the area for commercial purposes, with many street vendors, street bars, and legal and illegal public van stations that critics say are causing traffic problems, pollution, and untidiness.
“This area nowadays looks like a Sunday market,” Rachapol said.
“There’s no place for pedestrians to walk on the pathways as they’re full of street vendors,” he added.
He also expressed concern over the traffic problems facing Rajavithi Hospital located near the Victory Monument. He said the entrance to this hospital had been blocked by both legal and illegal public vans. Ambulances were not able to enter easily and take patients to emergency treatment at the hospital.
Hospital director Dr Varunee Jinarat said some patients had died in ambulances on the way to the hospital because they were blocked by public vans.
“We need to organise the public space utilisation of this area,” she said.
Pareena Prayukvong, a manager of The Network of NGO and Business Partnerships for Sustainable Development, said the group comprises shopping mall owners, educational institute operators, the hospital’s director, and local residents. It wanted the BMA to hold a public hearing and listen to recommendations from stakeholders to renovate the area.
It also wanted the BMA to remove the public van station and street vendors outside Rajavithi Hospital to other areas to allow easier ambulance access.
Additionally, the group demanded that the BMA reveal details of the concession contract with the private company developing the monument areas.
BMA’s deputy governor Dr Malinee Sukavejworakit said she had received a petition from the We Love Victory Monument Group and promised to allow it to participate in the area’s development process.
She added the BMA would ask the Bangkok Metropolitan Police to resolve traffic problems around the monument, including organisation of the public van stations.
Malinee approved the BMA’s plans to renovate the area as a green centre for Bangkokians to breathe fresh air by creating more parks and planting more trees.
She added that the renovation – expected to be complete by February next year - would still be based around the monument which commemorates the Thai victory in the Franco-Thai War - a brief conflict waged against the French colonial authorities in Indo-China. The monument was erected in June 1941.
