PHUKET: All restaurants and beach clubs on the shorefront at Phuket's popular Surin beach are likely to be bulldozed by early next year - once the legal documents approving demolition are finalised.

''This is the policy of Phuket province,'' the mayor who oversees the beach, Ma-Ann Samran, told Phuketwan today. ''Take them all down.''

Some of the best-known brands on Phuket will disappear, including Catch Beach Club, Bimi Beach Club, Zazada Beach Club and Pla restaurant. Fans of Surin say the five-star character of the beach will disappear with the demolitions.

But the National Council for Peace and Order instruction to reclaim all public land leaves Mayor Ma-Ann with no choice. He believes his role in politics will be over with his execution of the NCPO order.

''Two years ago, the governor of Phuket, who was then a vice governor, said to me at a meeting 'I hear you are corrupt and take money from beach vendors,'

''I am not corrupt,'' Mayor Ma-Ann said today. ''I have never taken corrupt money.

''We have to be strong on this issue and concentrate on getting it done. The question is how we destroy these buildings, by the law.''

The mayor says that Phuket must look to its future, at least five years in advance.

''Development has come extremely fast and we need to catch up,'' he said. ''I believe the best route ahead is for Phuket to be able to elect its own governor.''

Mayor Ma-Ann believes that his carrying out of the NCPO instructions in clearing the beaches of vendors and now of finally clearing the shorefront of illegal buildings will end his role in politics. Many of the people who once earned money illegally on the beaches he oversees - Surin, Bang Tao and Laypang - are voters.

''I am planning a future out of politics,'' he said.

One row of illegal buildings on the seaward side of a path that runs the length of Surin beach was demolished in mid-2014, opening up a magnificent vista of the sea that hadn't been visible for years.

Many people believe the balance between the row of restaurants and beach clubs along the landward side of the path and the beach, cleared of commerce, is ideal. But legally, the restaurants and beach clubs are on public land and the documents now being finalised are aimed at their demolition.

After the 2004 tsunami, the local Cherng Talay Council erected a row of units at the north end of the beach while the Phuket Provincial Administrative Organisation erected a similar row of units at the southern end of the beach.

The buildings were to allow locals to recover. However, Phuket boomed as a holiday destination and the rights to the units were sold on to investors. In most cases, the original beneficiaries have long gone, and the units have been enlarged or adapted to highly profitable private enterprises.

''The chief of the district of Thalang, the local administrators and the prosecutor's office have agreed that the buildings are no longer legal,'' Mayor Ma-Ann said. ''The next step is to have the PPAO transfer rights to the southern strip to Cherng Talay council, or to arrange demolition themselves.

''All the legal documents should be in place shortly and I imagine the buildings will come down early in the new year,'' Mayor Ma-Ann said.