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g)
(The Society observes that HK$1.7 million is required to re- novate Flagstaff House which is believed to be less sound than the KCR building. Even if a similar sum were required for the KCR building, it would be miniscule compared with the minimum of HK$40 million already committed to the Planetarium. It would be even less significant compared with the total cost of the entire Cultural Complex).
It claims that planning for the Cultural Complex is at an advanced stage. This deliberately conceals the fact that when the Society's petition was presented, five months ago, the plans were at an elementary stage. If these plans are now at an advanced stage it can only mean that the five months taken to comment on the Society's petition have been used to bring this about. This is a well known bureaucratic manoeuvre. We note that the Government letter refers to the "current draft plan".
The argument that plans were 'too far advanced' for modification has been used repeatedly in the past year or so to counter the campaign for the preservation of the KCR building. But the Society knows for a fact that up to June 1977 plans were not at an advanced stage. Well before this time, in 1976, the argument was used in the Urban Council to counter questions put by Mrs. Elsie Elliott CBE as to why the Cultural Complex design could not include the KCR building. It was used as a reason to the Antiquities and Monuments Advisory Board. And the Director of Public Works was quoted in the press as giving the same argument. The advanced stage of the plans was one of the main reasons given by Your Excellency in your announcement last summer, just before the presentation to you of our petition, that the building would. be demolished.. Even at that late stage, plans for the Cultural Complex were in fact not far advanced and it is thus apparent to us that the Urban Council, the Antiquities and Monuments Advisory Board, the public, and even Your Excellency have all been deceived by this false information which has been consis- tently used to influence the decision to demolish the KCR build- ing.
h) It claims that an alternative plan for the Cultural Complex would
take one and a half to two years to prepare and would mean un- acceptable delays to its completion. We do not accept this. Much of the design work completed by June 1977 was of a very preliminary nature. We understand that specialist consultants
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