G.S. 84
For discussion
on 5th August 1980
RESTRICTED
HKK2501
RA. NAS પ
XCR(80)185 Copy No
MEMORANDUM FOR EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
Public Health and Urban Services Ordinance
(Chapter 132)
OFFENSIVE TRADES (NEW TERRITORIES) (AMENDMENT) REGULATIONS 1980
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PA
Background
Section 48 of the Public Health and Urban Services Ordinance (Chapter 132) defines as an offensive trade any trade, business, process or manufacture which in the opinion of the Authority, causes offensive or noxious effluvia or dust or is otherwise of an offensive or harmful nature or which involves the slaughtering of animals or birds.
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Control of offensive trades in the urban area is exercised by the Urban Council through the Offensive Trades By-Laws, and in the New Territories by the Director of Urban Services through the Offensive Trades (New Territories) Regulations. Both By-Laws and Regulations are made pursuant to section 49 of the Ordinance.
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Regulation 6 of the Offensive Trades(New Territories) Regulations permits the Governor, by order published in the Gazette, to declare any area specified in the order to be an offensive trades area. In the past it was proposed that this regulation be used to designate areas in Sha Tin, Tuen Mun and Kwai Chung as offensive trades areas, as it was then felt that offensive trades should be moved away from the urban area and transferred to suitable sites in the New Territories. More recently, however, it has been realised that moving offensive trades in this way was exporting, rather than solving, the problem, and there was the added risk that offensive trades would tend to congregate in a particular area, thereby posing a potential threat to the environment. As early as 1977, for example, it was noted that a group of offensive trades at Kwai Chung was already polluting adjacent residential areas. It was therefore decided, as a matter of policy, that the concept of offensive trade areas or zones in both the New Territories and the urban areas should be abandoned as the accom- panying environmental problems outweighed the usefulness of such areas. Consequently, no areas were ever declared in the New Territories, and it was agreed that reference to such areas be deleted from the law. Amend- ments to the Offensive Trades By-laws relating to offensive trades in urban areas, will be sought as a separate exercise.
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