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MR. CHEONG-LEEN: -Mr. Chairman, will you also put it up to Government that we need one on a priority basis first for North Point?
MR. SALES: Is his constituency there?
MR. CHEONG-LEEN: -Causeway Bay, I beg your pardon. (Laughter).
MR. H. CHEONG-LEEN asked the following question:
Will the Chairman please advise what is being planned by way of providing an Oriental decor to some of this Council's future projects, such as rest gardens, sitting-out areas, playground library buildings, etc.?
THE CHAIRMAN replied as follows:-
There are plans in hand now for the construction of a children's library in the Chinese style at the King George V Memorial Park in Kowloon, to match the Chinese style of the existing pavilion and gateway there. I think that you are aware that the new round-about under construction near Kai Tak will include a Chinese garden with a lily pond, bridge and local shrubs and trees.
With regard to further projects in the future, one of the main considerations is availability of funds. I understand that it costs more to construct buildings in any but a purely functional style. As funds under the Urban Amenities Block Vote are limited, it has so far been the policy to make the best possible use of them by providing as many amenities as possible in a simple manner.
The suggestion that more regard might be given to the subject of Oriental decor would, I think, be of close interest to the Urban Amenities Select Committee, and if you wish, Sir, I will refer the matter to that Committee for consideration. MR. CHEONG-LEEN:-Mr. Chairman, there is quite a challenge in the third paragraph of your reply and I would be most happy, Sir, if you would refer it to that Committee.
MR H. CHEONG-LEEN asked the following question:--
Hong Kong has recently been described in the editorial of a local newspaper as a "Filthy City"; it was also stated that the Keep Your City Clean campaigns had little more than
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a passing effect. Will the Chairman please state whether the Keep Your City Clean campaigns are achieving substantial results and what more can be done to obtain further public support for such campaigns?
THE CHAIRMAN replied as follows:
The "Keep Your City Clean" campaign began in August 1959 and is still continuing. In each of the six most congested of the eight cleansing districts of the urban area, a 2-man team, using a loud-hailer, is on patrol, broadcasting advice on the three subjects with which the campaign is concerned, namely, spitting, indiscriminate depositing of litter, and allowing children to obey a call of nature in public. The teams get round their districts every week to ten days. There is therefore continuous exhortation to the population to keep their city clean, with reminders at frequent intervals to the residents at any particular spot. If the teams detect offences being committed summonses are taken out, but it is, of course, necessary to be able to produce satisfactory evidence of the commission of an offence.
The work of the teams is reinforced by health propaganda in the form of posters and leaflets distributed by staff of the Hygiene Division to householders, and by a broadcasting van, which is despatched to particular localities for the purpose of broadcasting health education talks that have been tape-recorded.
Judging by the continued prevalence of litter in our streets and lanes, I do not think that it is possible to demonstrate that the campaign has so far achieved substantial results, but I think that the position might have been much worse if there had been no campaign. Making people anti-litter conscious is a slow business. My friend the Deputy Director of Medical and Health Services put it well at the annual debate of this Council last May when, in referring to the results of health education, he said :-
"The tangible progress made by health education must always seem slow and hard won, but health teaching cannot be imposed upon people-we have to make them want, of their own accord, to live in cleaner and more healthy surroundings."
Our problem has perhaps been rendered more difficult by a steady influx over the years of persons lacking that knowledge of city life and manners which our residents of longer standing possess.
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