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I have formed the impression that their intention is to depose the Hong Kong Cricket Club from their present abode now, and replace it with a Museum and a Chinese garden and not retain it as an open space, in spite of the wording of the Motion. Perhaps that is understandable in view of their membership of the Museum Select Committee, as they may feel, after the deplorable showing of England in the Ashes Cricket Tournament recently, that all cricketers with U.K. connections ought to be reduced to the status of antiques.
The pro's and con's of this hallowed bit of ground have been debated at length elsewhere, and fully considered in the report I have just referred to. I should have thought further discussion of this subject could have been held in our Select Committee on Recreation and Amenities, if the proposer and seconder of this Motion felt that Members of the Committee who produced that Report had misdirected themselves in their conclusions, so that more cogent arguments could have been raised. Nothing I have heard so far this afternoon has convinced me that the recommendations made by the Sir Albert Rodrigues' Committee, with which our Senior Appointed Member Mr. SALES concurred, are at fault. If the Museum and Art Galleries Select Committee are looking for new fields to conquer, I suggest that it's high time they now concentrated some real effort on the other side of the harbour where the deficiencies in the amenities for which they are responsible are only too obvious to require spelling out.
The population of Kowloon alone would seem to merit some priority. There are many other areas in Hong Kong and Kowloon crying out for the provision of more public open spaces, long before the Central district is again considered. My colleague, Mr. Kenneth Lo, has drawn attention to those areas so deficient in Hong Kong. But the overcrowded areas of Yau Ma Tei, Sham Shui Po and Mong Kok, to name a few, deserve the priority of our attention before bleating about any real or imagined deficiencies in the Central district which is populated mainly by office wallahs who steal away quietly at the first strike of the hour of 5 p.m.
If I were convinced about the urgency which promoted this Motion, I would have no hesitation in voting for it. But as it is directed at a Club's facilities, which provides an essential safety valve for the energies of many of our younger and more virile inhabitants, I intend to vote against the Motion unless, of course, our gifted colleague Mr. SALES can initiate some face-saving amendment and throw some realism into the present situation.
MRS. ELLIOTT:- Mr. Chairman, I didn't prepare a speech because I wasn't quite sure of the import of this Motion. I only realised it when Mr. Hilton CHEONG-LEEN spoke. I would like to say that although the Central area is better off than Yau Ma Tei, and some other areas mentioned by Mr. FORSGATE, that doesn't mean that these comparisons are going to rule out the need for the Central district, because the Central district is a focal point for the whole of the population and at the moment, as we have no civic centre in Kowloon, it is the focal point for both sides of the harbour. I think we need all the space we can get around the City Hall because so many people do go to the City Hall and I think that area should be developed more and more and, of course, we should develop the other side too. I think the comparisons are vicious. Well, that's one point. I would like to underline the point that the City Hall does require more and more space because it's already overcrowded.
The second point I'd like to mention is that the expiry of the lease of the Kowloon Cricket Club makes it now a possibility to get the land back without hurting anybody, without breaking any rules——
MR. SALES: Excuse me, Hong Kong Cricket Club not Kowloon. (Laughter).
MRS. ELLIOTT:- I'm sorry, the Hong Kong Cricket Club, I'm sorry. I have nothing against the Hong Kong Cricket Club, I'm a cricket fan so I hope you don't think I am trying to get rid of the Cricket Club. But we do have a 1964 resettlement policy and the main aim of resettlement is to reclaim land for development, and I think we need to reclaim this piece of land when the lease expires for development for the public as a whole and not for a limited number of the public and we can resettle the Cricket Club elsewhere. I'm sure they won't mind.
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS:- Mr. Chairman, I don't often speak at these debates but Mr. CHEONG-LEEN did rather quote me out of context, and I would like first of all to read a brief paragraph from the Advisory Committee Report to which he referred. It reads "In this case we have been advised by the Director of Public Works that no suitable alternative site will be available in the urban areas for several years". It then goes on "Possible sites which are available now would suffer from the same fundamental objections as the present one. The most suitable alternative, we are advised, would be at Wong Nei Chong Gap, but the availability of the area is dependent on completion of the filling and it is unlikely that the site will be available until 1975."
Mr. Chairman, there is an acute shortage of filling material on Hong Kong Island and in order to make the minimum progress necessary on the Wan Chai Reclamation to fit in with our road and other development schemes, we are having to bring over from Kowloon some 500,000 cubic yards of filling material, as well as to open up new borrow areas in the hills above Tai Hang. Even so, this will not provide sufficient filling material to complete the Wan Chai Reclamation, and meanwhile no fill at all is going into Chai Wan Reclamation.
I would like Members to consider for a moment what is proposed in the way of public open space at these two densely populated areas
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