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MRS. ELLIOTT: Mr. Chairman, I can confirm that they were offered domestic sites, but I would also like to ask Mr. CHEONG-LEEN if he would take a trip to the area—he says we need open space—well, I would invite him to go and see Choi Hung park, which is generally empty and it is just next door to this place.
MR. CHEONG-LEEN: Mr. Chairman, it may be empty, but it is open space which is very much in need by the residents of Choi Hung, and I'm not the person with whom Mrs. ELLIOTT should want to pick a quarrel when it comes to open space, she ought to wait until the Chairman of the Parks and Recreation Committee comes back—I'd also like to point out, Mr. Chairman, that there is a site which had been zoned as a car park in the area bounded by Fu Yuen Street, Yin Ling Street and Kam Ming Street and Shun Ling Street at San Po Kong—now, the Urban Services Department had asked for this space on a temporary basis as a hawkers bazaar, with a view to permanent allocation for development as a combined market/hawkers bazaar since March this year. Unfortunately, this request was turned down, and subsequently I think the Department did liaise with the Public Works Department, which commenced a feasibility study on incorporating provision for hawkers in a multi-storey car park on this particular site. I hope that that feasibility study is now completed. So it shows, Mr. Chairman, that the Urban Services Department is also pressing its case to have hawkers bazaars in San Po Kong area, and it is not allowing every open space to be used, or taken away by the Parks and Recreation Select Committee. The situation is too that even the City District Office in Wong Tai Sin strongly supports the Urban Services Department's request that there should be more hawker and market facilities in San Po Kong, so it is pretty obvious, Mr. Chairman, that the Department is doing everything possible.
MRS. ELLIOTT: Mr. Chairman, may I assure Mr. CHEONG-LEEN I was not picking on him, because I know he is not responsible for this removal, but he happens to be the one who answered my question. May I ask him if he realizes that Choi Hung park is not in Choi Hung, it is in San Po Kong, and may I also ask again that this matter be referred to the Select Committee because the City District Officer can strongly recommend cooked food stalls in this area, and instead of putting more there they have been removed.
MR. CHEONG-LEEN: Ah, but Choi Hung, Mr. Chairman, is quite close to San Po Kong. (Laughter). Mr. Chairman, I think from what I have said that everything possible is now being done to get a combined market/hawkers bazaar in San Po Kong, and I hope that we will get every co-operation from the Public Works Department in completing this feasibility study and creating this multi-storey car park in which we hope there will be a combined market and hawkers bazaar, and I think that will answer the problem which Mrs. ELLIOTT has in mind.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
MRS. ELLIOTT: Mr. Chairman, may I ask again that this question of the San Po Kong hawkers be referred to the Committee, because I want this particular group fixed up as quickly as possible.
MR. CHEONG-LEEN: Mr. Chairman, this, of course, could be discussed by the Hawker Policy Select Committee, but I am sure that the answer will be exactly as I have said, that everything possible is being done.
MR. BERNACCHI: Mr. Chairman, why was it necessary to clear these cooked food stall hawkers before the hawkers bazaar was established? That is what it amounts to, this question and these answers.
MRS. ELLIOTT: Exactly.
CHAIRMAN: I think, Mr. BERNACCHI, the answer to this is going to be found in the area of priorities, and when one is arguing about priorities one will never get total agreement.
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS: Sorry, which hawker bazaar? I am not quite clear.
CHAIRMAN: It appears to be the clearance in San Po Kong for the Kai Tak East playground. As far as this Department is concerned, I can't, without notice, say in what form the offer of alternatives was made, but I am assured, and I do state, that an offer was made. That is from the point of view of the providers of the service. From the point of view of the consumers of the service, the Urban Services Department, like this Council, is fully aware of the needs of the workers in San Po Kong for somewhere to get reasonable food reasonably cheaply, and we haven't given up; anything which can be usefully discussed in any appropriate Select Committee of the Council, I will undertake to see put to the Select Committee.
MR. BERNACCHI: Another supplementary, but not over San Po Kong. (a) of the answer—"offers of hawker sites may also be made to operators of other businesses who are not catered for by Resettlement policies". Surely, it is of businesses in other huts—which huts are not catered for by Resettlement policies?
COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT: I think that would probably be what it means, Mr. Chairman.
(7) MRS. E. ELLIOTT asked the following question:
(a) After two written and one verbal promises to provide taps in the new section of the Sam Ka Chuen Resite,
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