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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
DR. BELL:-Thank you for such a full answer. Under the Clean Air Ordinance, Mr. Chairman, if somebody makes a complaint of smoke and smuts and soot bothering them, is there much likelihood of them getting action taken at present?
CHAIRMAN:-The complaint would be made to a member of the staff of the Urban Services Department, the Health Inspectorate, and he would act regardless of whether the complaint came under the Clean Air Ordinance or the Public Health & Urban Services Ordinance. To the Health Inspectorate the complaint would be one of smoke and soot, and the Inspector would go along and do what he could to put the matter right.
DR. BELL: Following that up, Mr. Chairman, if the matter cannot be put right that way, what action can the complainant take? Is there any action? Does he have to go to Court?
CHAIRMAN:-I do not think it is possible to give a general answer, Dr. BELL. One would have to have a specific case, see what the staff had recommended could or could not be done, and then say. If in the opinion of the staff an insufficient case can be presented in Court by the Department, we do not take it to Court. Then would be the time for the complainant to seek his or her private remedy.
DR. BELL:-You mean the complainants themselves could go to Court under the present Clean Air Ordinance?
CHAIRMAN:-The point could be tried as a test case.
DR. BELL:-Mr. Chairman, have there been many prosecutions of this nature?
CHAIRMAN:-I would like notice of that question, but my impression is that very few cases have been instituted by the staff of the Urban Services Department under the Clean Air Ordinance. Other Departments may well have taken action.
DR. BELL:-Mr. Chairman, my question did ask, “would you make public what you have told me in private in the letter". I notice you did not mention anything about section 15(1)(g) of the Ordinance in your reply to-day, which you have told me about in private. Would you be able to make that public too?
CHAIRMAN:-Have you got the reference right?
DR. BELL: Well, it is the reference you give in your letter-I put the reference down.
CHAIRMAN: Is it not section 56(1) of the Public Health and Urban Services Ordinance?
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
DR. BELL:-May I pass back your letter-page 3?
CHAIRMAN:-Paragraph 4 I think?
DR. BELL: Page 3 of your letter.
CHAIRMAN:-I may say Dr. BELL, I did not omit this portion of my letter in order to be evasive, but simply because I thought we had said quite enough on this subject already. This portion of my letter to Dr. BELL mentions the fact that under section 15(1)(g) of the Clean Air Ordinance "The Governor in Council may by regulation prescribe or provide for the making of orders prohibiting the use of any particular fuel or class or mixture of fuels in any furnace or oven, or any class thereof". I continued by saying, "I do not think any such regulations have yet been made, and the intention of the Legislature was, I imagine, that any such regulations, if made, should be of general application, rather than discriminating against restaurants and food factories. Still, I continued, "it is something to look into, from the point of view of whether there is by now a sufficient supply of smokeless fuels available in Hong Kong, whether the question of compensation would arise for compelling an existing restaurant or food factory to use a different type of stove from that or those now in use, and how easy or difficult control would be".
DR. BELL:-Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
(5) DR. A. M. S. BELL asked the following question:-
What steps, if any, and which department of Government is responsible for taking such steps, to erect some form of pedestrian bridge or safe pedestrian crossing in Chatham Road, Kowloon, to enable children and others to reach the Urban Council playground which is in the course of construction on the non-residential side of this busy thoroughfare as has been recommended on more than one occasion by the Parks, Recreation and Amenities Select Committee of this Council?
MR. A. de O. SALES, CHAIRMAN OF THE PARKS, RECREATION AND AMENITIES SELECT COMMITTEE, replied as follows:
At long last we have been flushed out of chimneys and into clean air once more. (Laughter).
The answer to the first part of the question is that the Public Works Department is responsible for erecting bridges or providing crossings of this nature.
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