THE National Parks service has withdrawn from its memorandum of understanding agreement with West Sands Resort pending the outcome of a police investigation.

The MoU was signed in April without the involvement of the resort's village neighbors, who staged a road blockade late last year in protest at the lopping of eight large trees on the West Sands shorefront at Mai Khao beach.

Sirinath National Park adjoins the West Sands Resort, where the Splash Jungle water park, Phuket's first theme park, is expected to open within weeks.

It is believed that the MoU embraced the concept of West Sands enhancing and improving parkland areas in exchange for removing some trees that locals say had been growing along the foreshore for many decades.

The locals were not involved in the MoU. As a result of the two week blockade of the resort, West Sands agreed to gift a boundary road for public use, providing access to the Mai Khao beachfront.

A walkway along the seafront has also been made a public thoroughfare.

The MoU was agreed for a period of 30 years but the Permanent Secretary of Phuket Provincial Office, Chaiwat Tepee, told a meeting at Provincial Hall yesterday that its continuation would depend on the outcome of the investigation by Thachatchai police.

Another meeting is be held next Tuesday.

The beach in front of the West Sands Resort was the scene of a rare event on Tuesday evening when a 300-kilo leatherback turtle came ashore to lay eggs there, the first time this has occurred since the 2004 tsunami.