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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
MR. HU: Mr. Chairman, may I, through you, ask Mr. SALES what is the ambition of Mr. SALES with regard to a swimming pool in the Colony. (Laughter).
MR. SALES: Sir, I am greatly obliged to my friend, Mr. Henry Hu, for having given me the opportunity again of saying, in respect of swimming pools, that as long as the Jockey Club is willing to pay for them and as long as the Finance Committee of Legislative Council can be persuaded to do so, it is the ambition of the Select Committee to have a swimming pool complex in every heavily populated district of Hong Kong to the extent that it is contemplated that a complex will be built for every 250,000 people living here.
MR. BERNACCHI: Mr. Chairman, I should like to ask a supplementary also. Is the policy to have a limited number of international size and standard swimming pools or a larger number of plain swimming pools?
CHAIRMAN: Mr. BERNACCHI, I think the answer to that will emerge from the answer to the next question.
(12) Dr. P. F. Woo asked the following question :-
Would the Chairman say if all our swimming pools should be of a standard or Olympic size? In view of our large population and also of the fact that there are already two standard size pools, should not our future pools be built as large as possible so as to facilitate more people?
MR. A. de O. SALES, CHAIRMAN OF THE PARKS, RECREATION AND AMENITIES SELECT COMMITTEE, replied as follows:-
I repeat what I said earlier that I am indebted to Dr. Woo for inviting public attention once more to the need for providing adequate swimming facilities in Hong Kong, a cause which I have advocated for nearly two decades. But there are, I suggest, ways of achieving these facilities which are more acceptable than simply to enlarge individual pools. Some years ago, when the need arose to consider in detail the plans for future public swimming facilities, the merits of various pool dimensions received a great deal of attention. A careful study of local requirement was made by the Urban Services Department and the Public Works Department in an effort to find a solution best suited to our needs. Among other conclusions, it was realized that large, unbroken areas of water would result not only in serious problems of safety, but would present difficulties in management.
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The provision of a single large pool, as opposed to a complex of pools of different sizes, would prevent the grant of exclusive use to organizations unless the general public were excluded and would also not allow for independent activities being carried out at the same time. Evidently, swimming could not be taught unless the pool was closed to other users. There would be the great disadvantage in the need to continue full manning even in off-peak periods.
The design of the new district swimming pools attempts to overcome these problems. Those now being planned for Li Cheng Uk and Kwun Tong each contains separate teaching pools, a diving pool and children's pools as well as facilities for competitive swimming at international standards. The advantage accrues from the fact that all these pools may be closed individually as demand dictates. In other words, several organizations and the public at large can use the facilities separately but during the same period.
Swimming complexes such as these are designed to accommodate a maximum of 5,000 people at one time, and the aim is to provide one for each 250,000 of our population. They aim to meet the needs of all types of bathers including toddlers in the paddling pools, divers who may perform without endangering others, learners who can enjoy the safety of a teaching pool in exclusive use, and the many young people who want and enjoy swimming under conditions of international contest.
So wide a range of interest could not possibly be accommodated if we sought to meet the problem by merely providing larger expanses of water. This happens to be in line with modern practice in the construction of public pools, serving densely populated neighbourhoods. I consider that the interest of our population in this matter can best be served by continuing to construct pools to the design which has now been agreed in the knowledge that they will be capable not only of accommodating large numbers of people, but of meeting a wide variety of neighbourhood interests.
At this stage this Council should be concerned with the immediate construction of the projects we have proposed so that the people will not have to wait much longer to swim in the pools we have talked about for so long.
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