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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Government propose for the effective disposal of Industrial Waste? This is a growing problem. For example, modern transportation methods utilize disposable pallets. A Company I know quite well had a huge accumulation of these light wooden frames, and no-one seemed to want them, certainly not the present breed of incinerators. They were eventually given away to an enterprising chicken farmer in the New Territories. However, there is a limit to the number of chickens requiring rehousing, but there is a growing volume of wooden pallets for disposal. This, of course, only illustrates a small part of a growing problem.
His Excellency, the Governor, also commented on the problem of Environmental Pollution in his stimulating address to Legislative Council when he referred to our apparently incurable habit of littering our streets with gay abandon, showing absolute lack of concern to other people's comfort and well being. The Governor has encouraged this Council to initiate a major move in this field, and I trust your Department, Sir, is hatching ideas to assist the energetic Chairman of the Select Committee in capturing the imagination of our youthful population in combatting litter-bugs, in the same effective manner he has stimulated another campaign.
I think I should illustrate, Mr. Chairman, the problem of pollution by telling a story about a symposium that was held recently to consider the whole problem. A very large company sent two experts. After the symposium they returned, and the managing director asked them what was the result. Well, there are two schools of thought. One, the optimist, reckoned that by the end of the century we will be living in a mass of mud, and eating it. And the chap said, well if that's what the optimist says, what would the pessimist say? Well, the pessimist said there won't be enough to go around. (Laughter).
Residential Amenities
I think most of the planners have been caught unawares by the recent remarkable surge of interest in outdoor activities, especially swimming and bathing. However, the roads to our best, and therefore most popular beaches on the Island and in the New Territories become almost impassable at weekends and on holidays. I understand that relief on the roads is a long way off, if ever, as a new wave of vehicles swamp new road facilities almost as soon as completed. Therefore, the only short-term solution is to provide more swimming pools within the Urban areas, where the need is greatest! Your Department, Sir, has, I am aware, submitted a most ambitious plan for a dramatic expansion of swimming pool complexes in the Urban areas to the Recreation and Amenities Select Committee. I say, press on with the programme with all despatch to help meet the almost desperate need of our younger people for a healthy outlet for their energy.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Many of us in this Council have now become firm advocates of the creation of a Housing Division combining the responsibilities of both Resettlement and Housing Authority, so that at some date in the future, a unified department is handling the lot. While a certain amount of lip service has been given to the idea by various Government Officers, what is Government's thinking on the subject? I hope one of your colleagues will give us a clue in his reply please.
On the same subject of Housing, I note that while the principle of Slum Clearance or Urban Renewal seems to have been accepted by Government, the progress towards implementation of even the modest pilot scheme seems to be agonisingly slow, or is this more apparent than real? What are the problems involved?
Abattoirs
I would invite all Members of this Council, who have not yet paid them a visit, to go and see our new abattoirs at Kennedy Town and Cheung Sha Wan, which are such a dramatic improvement over the primitive slaughterhouses they replaced, and indeed are a credit to our predecessors who were responsible for their inception, albeit long drawn out. Unfortunately, the return on the very substantial amount of money invested in them is miserable. As Chairman of this particular Committee, and a business man, I find it depressing, to say the least, that although some $66 million was invested in the abattoirs, and with annual costs running at over $24 million, our total revenue was only some $9.6 million in 1969-70. I fully appreciate that it is almost impossible, and probably wrong in principle, to try to equate a public facility with any commercial undertaking, as improved public health standards for meat was the dominating factor in the provision and design of our abattoirs.
However, after a recent visit to Cheung Sha Wan with Members of my Committee, and a full discussion of all their problems with the senior members of the operating staff, it is apparent many improvements can and must be made. Unfortunately, as so often happens, a fresh injection of capital is required from Government to change a semi-mechanized into a fully mechanized operation, and reduce the demand for expensive labour.
The experimental provision of refrigerated cooling chambers for storing meat has so far not been justified, owing to the prejudice against cooled meat as compared with hot meat, although paradoxically there is a growing demand for frozen meat from other sources. Perhaps some spade work in publicizing might help to overcome this strictly local antipathy, as we will never be able to plan a regular
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