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and equipment are also included. About one half of this work has already been carried out at a cost of $230,000. A further $200,000 or thereabouts will be needed to complete this stage.
The second stage includes park changing rooms, a refreshment kiosk, lavatories, a workshop block, fencing, water supply and footpaths. All the funds required for this work have been voted, a contract has been let, and the work is expected to be completed during 1963. This second stage also includes amenity lighting for the whole park. Funds have been voted for this, but a decision on the type of lighting has not yet been agreed with the Director of Civil Aviation.
The third stage is due to comprise a running track and facilities for athletic field events, an equipment store, a second senior grassed soccer pitch, 10 "en-tout-cas" tennis courts and a pavilion, one volley-ball and five basket-ball courts, and a large self-contained children's playground with a children's library, lavatories and a staff quarter. It is not known when work will start on this stage, since some of the detailed planning still remains to be done. This work may cost somewhere in the region of three quarters of a million dollars, and no funds have yet been voted.
I should now like to refer to the extremely generous gift of H.K. $760,320 which the United States Government made last month towards the cost of the Kowloon Tsai Park. This large sum of money is not restricted to any particular part of the Park, and Government intends to use it to cover all or part of the cost of all work still outstanding. If any additional and necessary expenditure is required an application for further public funds would be made.
I am sure that Council Members will join with me in thanking the United States Government, both for its generosity and for its interest in an amenity project which will serve many hundreds of thousands of Kowloon residents.
I am sure also that Members will agree that we should consider finding a name for this new park which will remind future generations of its close association with the people of the United States.
MR. SALES: Mr. Chairman, may I say that it is completely unnecessary for the Director of Public Works to be absent from this meeting. I notice that our Honourable friend is conspicuously absent today—no doubt he has read the report of proceedings of former meetings on the subject of the Kowloon Tsai Park. (Laughter).
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CHAIRMAN: Sir, Mr. WRIGHT is absent because there is a meeting of the Emergency Water Supplies Committee which has particularly vital information to consider today. He hopes to come later, but there is no guarantee.
MR. SALES: Mr. Chairman, may I, through you, assure the Director of Public Works that he enjoys the utmost goodwill on the part of the Unofficial Members in all matters, particularly the Kowloon Tsai Park.
CHAIRMAN:
MR. SALES: Thank you.
Now, Mr. Chairman, may I ask the relevant Select Committee to consider the suggestion, which was made in the Health Education Select Committee the other day, that it would be advisable, perhaps in the Kowloon Tsai Park, to introduce an open air cinema, so that the poor people could be given that amenity which does not exist anywhere in Hong Kong?
MR. CHEONG-LEEN: Mr. Chairman, may I also suggest that the question of having a bowling alley be referred to the Select Committee. It would be the first bowling alley to come under the jurisdiction of the Urban Council. I believe bowling is beginning to catch on in Hong Kong and I make that suggestion in all sincerity.
CHAIRMAN: These suggestions will be considered.
MR. SALES: Mr. Chairman, can this Council be given an assurance that the gift of $760,320 from the United States Government will not mean, in effect, that our own Government will reduce its contribution towards the cost of the Park by a corresponding amount?
CHAIRMAN: The position, as I understand it, is that in the Public Works Programme there is an approved overall estimate of $4 million for this project. The United States Government's gift is in addition to that, so far as I am aware. But the only thing I am certain of is the passage in my reply where I said with regard to the United States Government's gift: "This large sum of money is not restricted to any particular part of the Park, and Government intends to use it to cover all or part of the cost of all work still outstanding. If any additional and necessary expenditure is required an application for further public funds would be made."
MR. SALES: Mr. Chairman, that is what I feared; that this sum of money would mean in effect a reduction of Government's own contribution towards the cost of this Park. May I suggest then, Mr. Chairman, that you represent to Government that the facilities which Government wanted to cut out from the table of amenities submitted by the Urban Council should now be restored?
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