The order follows a protest by local residents at the site yesterday (Mar 7).
The villagers called for public access to the beach to be restored. Many held up placards and shouted slogans, accusing private business operators of claiming exclusive rights to public land.
Police were present at the protest, but no violent incidents were reported.
In response, Vice Governor Sattha invited the protesters to have representatives join discussions at Phuket Provincial Hall yesterday afternoon. Present for the discussions were Ratsada Mayor Nakarin Yosaengrat and a host of other relevant officials.
At the meeting, the villagers present a list of demands, chiefly that the “private sector” must immediately restore access to Laem Nga Beach.
The villagers also called for the private landowner to improve the path to the beach, make it clean and to install electric lighting to make the path safe to traverse at night.
The villagers also called for officials to investigate whether the land ownership and acquisition of the land was legal.
The road to the beach, 1.5km long and 10 metres wide, was a public road built by the Department of Rural Roads in 2016 and was designated Rural Road PorKor 4097, the villagers explained.
Provincial officials had previously inspected the area and negotiated with the landowner, Laem Nga Development Co Ltd, but the road was closed and no further action had proceeded, the villagers noted.
The company claimed that it owned the land that the last 468m of road to the beach was built on, the villagers explained.
Ratsada Mayor Mr Nakarin explained that he had already been in discussion with the landowner, who had agreed to reopen access to the beach within 15 days.
However, some villagers had already taken down some of the tin panels blocking the beach access, he noted.
Regardless, Vice Governor Sattha yesterday issued three separate orders for the road access to the beach and ownership of the land to be investigated.
The orders were specifically addressed to the Phuket Provincial Damrongdharma Center (provincial ombudsman’s office), the Muang District Chief and the Phuket Land Office.