Bean-counters sold our lovely embassy in Ploenchit
Isn’t it a shame that the British Government will now be totally abandoning the Embassy grounds in Ploenchit, probably for a dour dull-grey office block in some traffic snarled part of town.
Most Brits will regret this decision by the civil servants in Croydon and Whitehall and I will too, having worked there as Vice-Consul and having brought up three children on this wonderful verdant site.
When I see the plans for the pleasing ‘green’ new Austrian Embassy – and after all this time the magnificent Embassies of France and Portugal still proudly sitting on the banks of the Chao Phraya River as they have been for over two centuries, I do think that the bean-counters in the UK have got this wrong. Taxpayers’ money saved, they say – perhaps, but there is much more than a loss of aesthetic pride for many Brits who live here and those Brits, Thais and the Gurkhas who were happy and privileged to have worked at the British Embassy in Ploenchit.
So, thank you to the Nai Lert family for your gift to us, which we used for just a little less than 100 years. Apparently, we must sell this now incredibly valuable real estate! In bidding a heartfelt farewell we leave liberal concepts of style, grace and green space to the French, Portuguese and Austrians.
Lem Morgan
Nonthaburi
