Decision 39 COM 7B.71

Historic City of Ayutthaya (Thailand) (C 576)

The World Heritage Committee,

1. Having examined Document WHC-15/39.COM/7B;
2. Recalling Decision 36 COM 8E, adopted at its 36th session (Saint-Petersburg, 2012), adopting the retrospective Statement of Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) for the property;
3. Acknowledges the information provided by the State Party and the steps taken in response to the concerns about the quality of the post-flood restoration work undertaken in 2012 and to the ICOMOS Advisory mission; as well as the project to study and establish flood modelling, in order to propose flood risk mitigation measures for the Historic City of Ayutthaya with the assistance of the World Heritage Centre and UNESCO Bangkok;
4. Recommends the State Party to carry out, as a matter of urgency, training programmes to improve the skills and expertise of craftsmen undertaking the conservation activities and to ensure conservation approaches are based on scientific conservation principles and respecting use of traditional materials and skills;
5. Requests the State Party to develop a comprehensive plan for conservation and utilization with the assistance of experts and specialists of different disciplines and to update the site Management Plan accordingly;
6. Encourages the State Party to organize an international symposium, in collaboration with UNESCO and the Advisory Bodies, to debate on the conservation philosophy of brick associated sites, together with academics and international conservation practitioners;
7. Also requests the State Party to refrain from new construction within the property and its setting in particular within the area of the footprint of the historic city that may have an impact on its OUV of the property and to ensure appropriate control mechanisms are established, in line with the national policy concerning the protection of cultural heritage and World Heritage properties;
8. Invites the State Party to provide the World Heritage Centre with detailed information concerning the restoration projects as part of the post-flood interventions and, in general, any major projects foreseen at the property and its buffer zone, for review by the Advisory Bodies, in conformity with Paragraph 172 of the Operational Guidelines;
9. Further requests the State Party to submit to the World Heritage Centre, by 1 December 2016, an updated report, including a 1-page executive summary, on the state of conservation of the property and the implementation of the above, for examination by the World Heritage Committee at its 41st session in 2017.