About 12 kilometres of beach in Danang City's Ngu Hanh Son District have been encroached by resorts, blocking the beach and ocean view from locals.

Da Nang beach blocked from locals

The residents in Ngu Hanh Son District have filed many complaints to the authorities but nothing has been done. Nguyen Van Hung from My An Ward said the water was clean and they could go out for a swim anywhere before the resorts appeared.

"The beach really belonged to the people," he said.

But since 2008, routes to the beach were blocked. Many people gave their lands to the Ho Xuan Huong Street expansion project, hoping to have better roads to the beach and the residential area would be improved. But parts of the beach were sold to the hotel and resorts' investors.

According to Le Thi Thanh Tam, a local living on Ho Xuan Huong Street, at first the investors said they only blocked the route to protect the materials and would reopen it after the project finished.

"But they built a gate to the resort and the public road became their entrance road to the resort," she said. "Former Danang Party Secretary Nguyen Ba Thanh said investors must leave a route to the beach for the locals, but such directive was ignored by investors while former Danang Chairman Van Huu Chien was in office."

Hardly any locals have access to the 12km of beach in Ngu Hanh Son District. Local Tran Xuan Dinh said it was difficult to go fishing or return home because resort guards often warned them not to set foot on the beach.

Director of the Department of Construction Vu Quang Hung said they had started re-planning the coastal area to open nine public routes to the beach along with four public beach along 10km. He confirmed that all seaside projects must be at least 50 metres from public beaches according to Danang's construction regulations, and no private construction were allowed in this area.

Danang Chairman Huynh Duc Tho admitted that the authorities had sold the beach to the investors so it would be difficult to open routes for the locals now. Tho claimed that they had negotiated with the investors but none of them wanted to provide access to the beach to local people.

Dtinews/Nguoi Lao Dong