Cherng Talay Municipality’s Water Production Division Supervisor Tripoom Musikkarat confirmed to The Phuket News today (Feb 5) that mains water supply has been shut off to 11 locations, most of them on Soi Cherng Talay 14 and 16.
Among the residential projects directly affected are The Residence Resort and Spa Retreat, phases two and three of The Residence housing estate as well as Sai Taan Villa, Oceanstone by Resava, Diamond Condominium, Mandala Condominium and the Baan Mandala housing estate.
Other places includes Green Elephant Sanctuary Park, Blue Tree Phuket and places under the management of STC Service Co Ltd and Samcom Co Ltd, Mr Tripoom confirmed.
“Cherng Talay Municipality informed the operators [sic] on Jan 10 by phone and sent a formal letter to each operator again at the end of January. The water supply to these locations was shut off at 1pm last Saturday (Feb 1),” Mr Tripoom admitted today.
“We have to shut off the water supply to them because they used a lot of water. We take water distribution to houses of local people as priority,” Mr Tripoom said.
Mr Tripoom did not explain why this information was not forthcoming when contacted by The Phuket News on Monday (Feb 3) about the nightly water shut-offs to affect local residents (see story here), or why this information was not posted publicly by Cherng Talay Municipality.
“We post only things that affect local people, but we only stopped supplying water to places where they have the budget to buy water by themselves,” Mr Tripoom said.
“We are trying hard to keep water for local people for as long as we can. Local people do not have money to buy water, but the owners of those places do,” he said.
“The operators [of the housing estates affected] have their own budgets to buy water by themselves, while some of those places even have their own water sources and water to spare,” Mr Tripoom repeated.
Regardless, Mr Tripoom added, “All operators said they understand and cooperated well.
“We do not know when water supply will be back to normal. At this stage, we just have to wait for the rain to return or find another new water private company to buy water from,” Mr Tripoom said.