973
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from the Managing Director, External Broadcasting
2nd October, 1981
1
Dear Nicholas
As I mentioned on the phone, I was somewhat depressed during my recent brief visit to Hong Kong to learn that the proposal for a relay station at Tsang Tsui, in the New Territories, is now in jeopardy because of a plan to site the new airport in the area. This news came from Alan Scott, who told me that a decision confirming either the original intention to site the airport on Lantau Island or to settle for the new site, was unlikely to be made until next spring. Further consideration of the relay station project would therefore have to wait until after that.
Incidentally, I also learned from a very different source that the land required for the transmitter site had been offered free by the millionaire Chinese owner soon after an editorial in the Ming Pao daily had come out strongly in support of the plan. I cannot, of course, vouch for the authenticity of this report.
If the Tsang Tsui site has to be abandoned, we would obviously hope that further consideration would be given to: the Che Ha site in the East of the New Territories. You will remember that this did not find favour originally with the Hong Kong authorities for environmental and other reasons. On the other hand, our engineers have always considered this the best of the two sites. A feasibility study and costings are on file.
Tran's
نابنا
(Douglas Muggeridge)
Lord Nicholas Gordon Lennox, CMG, MVO,
Assistant Under-Secretary of State,
Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
Great George Street,
London SW1A 2AH