1979

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CHAIRMAN (in English):-Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen, the meeting is called to order.

The minutes of the meeting held on 11 September 1979 were confirmed.

CHAIRMAN (in English):-The summer recess is now well over. It is not that this Council ever came to a standstill in that time. Many committees stood down however. Still, members worked in the main, and the department too, for what the Council does concerns directly the daily lives of the citizens. So, its work can never stop.

Now, back in session, the committees study progress reports and analyse financial allocations. For it is budget time again. It is also the time when new plans are drawn up to set next year's goals. Progress does not come about by chance. It means patient work, bold planning and constructive use of resources. All parts have to be brought into play and put together carefully. Then, after months or often even years of diligent work, the public sees the results: the opening of a market building or an indoor stadium; the start of another clean-up campaign or a new health education programme; and the presentation of a renowned visiting orchestra or a major arts exhibition. And so on, an exciting recital of civic accomplishments.

There is a sense of common endeavour. Indeed, even an awareness here and there of the futility of power without an intelligent public purpose. The need to be clear about each problem impresses on the collective mind. Solutions are thought out, perhaps only to be rejected as impractical or put aside for another day while some are always followed through with advantage.

The constant pre-occupation with service to the community calls for a viable structure to run a large-scale organization efficaciously. This is the administrative function of management in reality. But it is also the Council's role to set the pace all the time. Effective leadership creates new performance capacity and fixes higher achievement standards. Otherwise, there might be only efforts and no results.

It is the Council's distinct task to innovate and keep up the momentum of progress. And also, to aim high for the good of the people. Thus, the Council should waste no time on yesterday but be concerned with the making of tomorrow. To create the new and the different has been its resolute policy since re-constitution six years ago. The people have benefited handsomely in consequence.

A modern metropolis needs civic innovation in a period of rapid change just as business takes the initiative in order to succeed in competition. Hong Kong has prospered beyond reasonable expectations and is obviously poised to move into a new stage of economic development with consequential political connotations. It has surpassed on a head count the economic achievements of many places with distinct material advantages. The community should now set about acquiring the attributes of a thriving and progressive society in the twilight years of this century. Is the Council, for its part, equal to the critical challenge of purposeful social progress in the sensitive Hong Kong context?

(Mr. Edmund W. H. CHOW, Miss Cecilia L. Y. YEUNG and Mr. Augustine S. K. CHUNG arrived during the Chairman's address.)

The following paper was laid on the table:-Report to the Urban Council by the Director of Urban Services and Secretary, Urban Council, for the month of September 1979.

1. MR. B. A. BERNACCHI asked the following question (in English):—I was in Swansea, Wales recently and I saw its Leisure Centre. It has swimming pools, sun-bathing rooms, billiard rooms, judo rooms, squash rooms, bowling alleys, even indoor tennis courts, rest rooms, a small theatre etc. Could consideration be given to introduce such a centre in Hong Kong either in the Civic Centre or elsewhere?

MR. H. M. G. FORSGATE, CHAIRMAN OF THE PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT SELECT COMMITTEE, replied as follows (in English):-This question concerns the possible construction by the Council of a leisure centre similar to the one in Swansea.

I understand from Mr. BERNACCHI's question that the leisure centre which he visited consists mainly of facilities for indoor sports. The Urban Council has no plans at present to build a leisure centre of precisely this kind partly because of the different needs of the local community and partly because the climate in Hong Kong favours outdoor activities. It is the Council's policy to build swimming pool complexes at the rate of one for every 250,000 people in the urban areas and most of these will be outdoors. In each urban district, it is the Council's aim to provide an indoor games hall for those

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