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RECREATION AND THE ARTS
places, waymarked walks, shelters, toilets, and information and educational services. Road access is being improved to enable park staff to deal more effectively with fires and litter - the most serious problems created by visitors.
About 9.3 million visits were made to the parks during the year. Although the parks are used more in the drier and cooler months, with October to April accounting for 65 per cent of the total visitors, increasing numbers of people now go to the countryside during the summer. Evening visits to roadside picnic sites are also becoming popular.
The Director of Agriculture and Fisheries is the Country Parks Authority and, advised by the Country Parks Board, is responsible for these facilities and for the provision of manage- ment and protection services for all lands designated as country parks and special areas.
Urban Council
The Urban Council continues to play a vital role in community life by providing a wide range of recreational and cultural facilities in the urban area of Hong Kong. The Urban Services Department, as the executive arm of the council, manages a total open space of 511 hectares. Other than parks and playgrounds, major recreational facilities provided by the council include stadia and sports grounds, swimming pools, beaches, indoor games halls, tennis and squash courts.
Urban Council projects completed in 1987 include the Extension of Cape Collinson Columbarium and Diamond Hill Columbarium, Wah Fu Estate Playground, Nam Long Shan Cooked Food Centre, Kwun Tong Ferry Pier Square and To Kwa Wan Recrea- tion Ground.
To maximise land use, more and more multi-storey Urban Council market complexes were planned with some floors constructed exclusively for recreational or cultural use. The facilities provided include indoor games halls, libraries, auditoria for performances, multi-purpose rooms for rehearsals, training, lectures and community functions, visual arts studios and exhibition areas. The concept of building multi-purpose complexes was reviewed during the year and recommendations were made to improve the design of complexes and to overcome various constraints arising from usage.
Three complexes were completed in 1987. They are located in Sham Shui Po, Kowloon City and Kwun Tong Districts in Kowloon. Another seven complexes were under construc- tion in various districts.
The provision of indoor recreational facilities has been strengthened by the completion of eight indoor games halls during the year in Wan Chai District on Hong Kong Island and Sham Shui Po, Kwun Tong, Wong Tai Sin, Mong Kok and Kowloon City Districts in Kowloon. In addition six new indoor games halls were under construction and 14 were under various stages of planning.
The construction of Phases II and III of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre at Tsim Sha Tsui progressed smoothly during the year. Phase II comprises an Auditoria Building, an Arts Library, an Administration Building and a Restaurant Block, while Phase III is the Museum of Art providing gallery facilities for exhibition purposes. Phase II is scheduled for completion in 1989, and Phase III in 1990. Construction of the Museum of Science and Technology Phase I in Tsim Sha Tsui East is due to commence in 1988 with completion scheduled for 1990.
Extensive redevelopment work on Kowloon Park, also progressed according to schedule. The project, due to be opened in early 1989, will provide an expanded Museum of History, and a wide range of active and passive recreational facilities, including an Olympic-size swimming pool.