HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
2. I would like to say that the points made by Mr. Kenneth Lo in respect of the New Museum have my full support. I understand that a submission is now being processed in the Colonial Secretariat to include an appropriate item in Category C of the 1972 Public Works Programme to allow the Council's suggestion to build a museum on or near to the present Kowloon-Canton Railway Terminus site to be investigated more fully. Active planning for this major project should start just as soon as Government has approved it or allocated the site. I say "or allocated the site" as I imagine that when the Council assumes financial responsibility for its activities it will not be necessary to obtain Government approval for the construction of projects although of course it will still be necessary to get the sites. In the case of the Kowloon-Canton Railway Station on which it is proposed to plant the Museum, the site is so valuable, and in my opinion so ideally situated, that the Council will be well advised to make sure the best use is made of it that is possible. I should like to see it developed to provide facilities complementary to those of the City Hall and designed to serve the Colony as a whole rather than simply Kowloon. At present the sites are separated by a 10-minute trip on the Star Ferry. Next year they will almost be joined by a road link through the Cross-Harbour Tunnel and if I repeat if the Underground Railway is built they will be a tube station away from each other on lines which will link them to the most densely populated parts of Kowloon and, later, Hong Kong. I ask that this is borne in mind when the planning proceeds as perhaps that is the natural Civic Centre.
3. However, with regard to the provision of a Kowloon Civic Centre referred to by Mr. SALES, Members will be pleased to know that it seems likely that approval will be given to the Council's request to include this project in Category B of the Public Works Programme for 1972-73 as an investigation item to allow an order of capital cost to be established. When this has been done, and if the Council's costing on expected revenue and recurrent expenditure (sent last month to the Secretariat) is found sufficiently persuasive, the matter will be put to the Finance Committee of Legislative Council for a decision in principle.
4. Both the City Hall and proposed Museum sites are at present well served by car parks and in respect of the former I know of few places in the world where, as in Hong Kong, one can park one's car, walk straight into a hall with admirable acoustics and listen, a few minutes later, to concerts by orchestras of the calibre of the London Philharmonic. But my friend, Mr. Henry WONG is right in that, when the Cross-Harbour Tunnel is built, the people in Kowloon will, quite rightly, attempt to avail themselves of the same facilities which will then be inadequate. A new standard multi-storey car park for 900 parking spaces is under construction at the nearby at Murray Road and provision of a further 1,600 parking spaces has been proposed as part of the complex which will be built on the existing Garden Road open air car park. These car parks will have pedestrian links to the City Hall area by way of the building which will be erected on the Murray Road site to be put up for sale later this month and which will be connected by a footbridge across Connaught/Harcourt Roads. I should have liked to have seen these car parks coming into service at least a year earlier than has been possible but I fancy that traffic through the Cross-Harbour Tunnel will take time to build up once the initial novelty of using the Tunnel has worn off.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
5. I agree with Mr. WONG that the public would be prepared to, and in fact must, pay higher parking charges but would expect the income arising therefrom to be used to provide more parking places. This, however, is not the same as saying that Government has an obligation to provide a parking space for all who wish to own a car. Again in my opinion the Colony cannot afford to allow unrestricted growth of vehicle ownership for very much longer and motorists must be made to pay the going rates for the congestion and inconvenience they create for the general public. This in turn means that they should foot a fair proportion of the $5,000 million plus bill for the Mass Transit System if this comes to be built as, by and large, it is they who have made it necessary. If the present road space and that which can be created without the wholesale demolition of property, were available for a greatly improved public transport system consisting basically of double-decker buses, then certainly we could delay consideration of an underground railway for some years yet. This, of course, is a pipe dream but provides justification for measures to restrict car ownership, rigid control of minibuses and rapid expansion and improvement of the conventional bus services.
6. In respect of public housing I appreciate that members often criticize Government's performance in the building field simply as a spur to further efforts but it is occasionally wise to view such matters in their correct perspective and I am grateful to Mr. John MACKENZIE for doing this. There are two main aspects of Government Housing—quantity and quality. As regards quantity I think that the Hong Kong Government has every right to be proud of its efforts. Over the last 10 years 1,117,000 units of accommodation have been built in Resettlement and Low Cost Housing and although we had a bad year in 1969 due to contractors going bankrupt, 118,500 individual units were built last financial year and this output will be maintained this year. The next six year programme for the period 1st April, 1970 to 31st March, 1976 is for 700,000 individual units and from the figures I have quoted and the fact that at the end of March next year 182,000 units will be under construction in different parts of the Colony, Members of this Council will gather that between the 1st April, 1972 to 31st March,
Page 205 of 242
390