PATTAYA, Thailand – Pattaya City is moving to repair badly damaged roads behind Naklua New Market, where potholes and deteriorating surfaces have been causing problems for residents, despite uncertainty over whether some of the land can legally be treated as public road space.
During a Pattaya City Council meeting, council member Dueansakaw Jamcharoen raised concerns over roads in Soi Sawangfa 3/1, the connecting road to Soi Post Office in Naklua and roads inside Soi Post Office.
She asked whether the city could use its road-recycling method to repair the damaged surfaces, particularly in areas where the road level has risen significantly above drainage covers, potentially affecting both drainage and traffic. Deputy Pattaya Mayor Manot Nongyai said the roads are commonly known as the “New Market back lanes” or “Soi New Market.” Several lanes serve residents and businesses around the row-house development behind the market. However, a major obstacle is the legal status of the land. Although Pattaya City has drainage covers in the area and residents have used the roads for decades, parts of the land have not clearly been established as public roads.
Manot said the city must have clear land-right documents before it can allocate a formal budget for major road construction or rehabilitation, particularly where private land may be involved.
But residents will not have to wait for the legal issue to be resolved before seeing some improvement. Manot has ordered city staff to inspect the damaged sections and patch potholes and carry out basic repairs immediately to ease the problems faced by residents. He said the work can be undertaken by city crews to provide temporary relief, even though a full road improvement project cannot yet be established while the land-right issue remains unresolved.
Pattaya is also preparing to strengthen its road repair capability with new equipment. The city has purchased a new asphalt mixing machine to replace equipment that has been operating for more than 20 years. The new machinery is currently being installed and is expected to take about three months to become operational. It will be accompanied by an asphalt paving machine and other equipment.
Manot said the new equipment should allow Pattaya to respond more efficiently to damaged roads, particularly in areas that have been used collectively by residents for more than two decades but where ownership of the underlying land remains unclear. He added that similar problems exist in several other parts of Pattaya. City officials will continue inspecting damaged roads and carrying out repairs where possible, while larger rehabilitation projects will have to wait until legal and land-ownership issues are clarified.
