A COMPLETELY NEW PORT
and two, that the end-object of their labours was the production of facilities which not only would meet Hong Kong's needs but would also square with, and further, the economic development of South China.
By mid-1989 PADS had assembled the forecasts and strategic options, which were then presented to government. The estimate of the likely growth in port cargoes allowed for the possibility that traffic could increase by a factor of between five and six; subsequent analysis arrived at a factor of four as a more dependable figure for planning purposes - meaning a four-fold rise from the 71 million tonnes handled in 1988 to a foreseeable total of some 250 million tonnes in 2011. In the same period, air passenger traffic was projected to grow by a factor of more than three, from 15 million passengers annually to around 50 million.
The options for catering for these increases were narrowed down to three Recommended Strategies, laid out in map form as well as textually, for the government to choose from. All three strategies provided for new container terminals on Lantau, but their con- figuration varied according to the location of the airport.
Under Strategy A a new airport would be built in the western harbour approaches, between the outlying islands of Lamma and Cheung Chau. Strategy B placed a new airport on the far side of Lantau, on a reclamation taking in the island of Chek Lap Kok. Strategy C, manifestly a worst-case or fall-back scenario, envisaged the retention of the airport at Kai Tak, with the implicit limitation that further passenger demand would have to be artificially constrained.
So many schemes, private as well as public, hung on the final decision ("We're waiting on PADS' was an expression repeatedly heard in construction circles) that rumours about both the options and the outcome rose to a high level of intensity during the third quarter of 1989. Speculation was ended on October 19 when the Governor told a packed meeting of the Legislative Council that Strategy B, placing the new airport on Chek Lap Kok, had been adopted.
The total cost of the port and airport works and associated infrastructure, he said, would be about $127 billion (at 1989 prices) over the period up to 2006. This was ‘an enormous financial commitment'; but it was one that 'we cannot afford not to make.' Port development will account for about 40 per cent of the total, the airport for about 30 per cent. Something like half the capital for the combined undertakings will come from the private sector.
The Grand Design was now in place. Summarising its port components, Sir David emphasised that the first priority was to reinforce and expand the Kwai Chung container port, to the north west of Kowloon, by constructing Terminals 8 and 9 on either side of it, on reclamations at Stonecutters Island and Tsing Yi Island respectively. 'We then plan to move the focus of the port westward,' he said, indicating the intention to build further terminals in north-east Lantau, with reclamations based on the Tsing Chau Tsai peninsula.
This move will be made possible by a massive bridge-and-highway project, known as the Lantau Fixed Crossing, which will connect the new airport by road with Kowloon. The objective is that the first of the airport's two runways will come into operation, if possible, in mid-1997.
The Fixed Crossing is today still commonly envisaged solely as a conduit for the airport. But it will in fact become a no less essential conduit for container lorries going to and from the new port. And the 1 400-metre span of its main suspension bridge will serve as an
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