Phuket Beach Gains Quality Football Pitch, Public Park

PHUKET: A new 19 million baht football pitch facility is being built near Phuket's Surin beach that will give the island a taste for higher quality football.

As the Euro 2012 Championships come to a climax, Phuket fans will be salivating as the football park project kicks into higher gear with the finish scheduled for March.

The land, once part of Thailand and Phuket's first golf course, belongs to Cherng Talay council but the money for the project is coming from the Phuket Provincial Adminitrative Organisation, Phuket's top council.

''It will be great for residents and tourists,'' said Cherng Talay mayor Ma-Ann Samran.

''We need this kind of quality facility. There will be a kids' park, a water processing facility to keep the grass fresh, and a grandstand as well as a car park.''

The park will be landscaped on both sides of the existing road to the beach and include one pitch-and-putt golf hole.

New football pitches have been springing up around Phuket in recent years to serve the growing interest in the world game.

At present the project, on land that was basically not being used, is having a reinforcing wall erected to flatten off land behind the existing Surin beach carpark.

The Surin beachfront, battered by a monsoon season earlier this month, remains in need of repair.