First hearing on riverside promenade set for April 22

THE FIRST public hearing on the riverside promenade project Chao Phraya for All will be held on Friday next week to hear suggestions and concerns from all stakeholders.
However, Banpoon community in Bang Phlat district – one of the communities that opposes to the promenade project, has said they have not yet been invited to the hearing and no one from King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Lat Krabang (KMITL) visited them and told them about the project.
Yesterday at KMITL, the Chao Phraya for All team gave details on progress in the study on the project. It also announced the first public hearing to inform people of the study plan, working plan and benefits from the project, while it will listen to concerns of the public and sum up ideas on the development.
Antika Sawadsri, spokesperson for the project, said the hearing would be held at SD Avenue Hotel Pinklao in Bang Phlat district on Friday to formally introduce the project to the public.
“All stakeholders such as the 34 local communities, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, |academics, riverside hotels and business, schools, temples and religious places are invited to the event to discuss how we should develop our river,” Antika said.
“We won’t only listen to voices |of people within 14 kilometres of the project’s first phase, but we want to listen to everyone’s opinions, so we can design the right model for the promenade,” she said.
Antika said the promenade |project also aimed to meet the communities’ need and help solve existing problems such as water drainage problems, small community access, plus littering that goes into the river.
Meanwhile, Pichai Ampaichit, a riverside resident from Banpoon, said his community had yet to get an invitation to the public hearing and no-one from KMITL had informed the community about the hearing.

Banpoon community ‘will go and present our own plan’
“Even if we are not invited, we will go to the event. We shall |present the study team with our information to prove that communities are capable of developing their own [community development] plan that suits people’s needs,” Pichai said.
He said locals needed community development, not riverside development. He asked the KMITL team to go to his area to see the community project, that Banpoon residents drew up with Friends of the River to make a bike lane through the area for tourism and cultural learning.
“We can have decent bike lane without encroaching on the river.”
The riverside promenade was proposed by Deputy Premier Gen Prawit Wongsuwon and undertaken by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA).
KMITL signed a contract with the BMA last month to conduct the study on the project. The deadline for the study is in September.