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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
with the Highways Division of the Public Works Department about the conversions of the remaining traffic islands along Connaught Road Central into raised planting areas similar in design to the one between St. George's Building and the Connaught Centre. If the Highways Division allocates these sites, the landscape plan will include the planting of 30 trees of various species, 500 shrubs and 1600 ground-covering plants.
MR. YOUNG (in English):—Mr. Chairman, I agree that the main problem is the lack of suitable sites and I am glad to hear that the Department is discussing with the Highways Division the conversion of certain sites. When we are doing that, can we please consider one particular site in front of World-wide House, in the middle of Connaught Road which seems to me an ideal site to change into a raised planting area?
MR. Lo (in English):—Mr. Chairman, I'll certainly ask the Department to look into that.
6. MR. LAWRENCE H. L. FUNG asked the following question (in English):—Hong Kong has been described as one gigantic building site. Together with our high concentration of diesel vehicles, particulate fallout is a serious problem. I would like to ask how frequent are the streets of Hong Kong washed down.
DR. DENNY M. H. HUANG, CHAIRMAN OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL HYGIENE SELECT COMMITTEE, replied as follows (in Cantonese):—This question concerns the frequency of washing down the streets in Hong Kong.
Streets in the urban areas are washed according to carefully considered programmes. The frequency is normally once a week in residential or mixed residential and shopping areas, while in hawker areas it is twice a week. On major trunk roads and thoroughfares (including flyovers), sprinkling with pressured sprays is normally scheduled to be done every other night.
This cleansing service has been seriously affected by the current water restrictions, and departmental staff have therefore rescheduled the programme on a more selective basis. The frequency of both street washing, which includes manual scrubbing of the ground surface, and sprinkling, which entails the moistening of the road surface in order to suppress the movement of dust, has been reduced. Streets in residential or mixed residential and shopping areas are now washed down once every two or three weeks, although the normal frequency is being maintained in black spots such as streets with heavy concentrations of hawkers.
The sprinkling of water on main roads has been reduced to once a fortnight. Members will be interested to know that all of the water used for street washing is obtained from wells and nullahs and the service is not therefore a burden on the mains water supply.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
MR. FUNG (in English):—Mr. Chairman, in Dr. HUANG's Chinese answer, he mentioned that the street washing programme is a very carefully considered one, but in the English translation, it said it was an approved programme. May I ask who approved the street washing programme?
DR. HUANG (in English):—Just a moment, may I know which paragraph you are referring to please?
MR. FUNG (in English):—Mr. Chairman, the first sentence in the answer.
DR. HUANG (in Cantonese): Mr. Chairman, that's the reason why I've made some additions to the answer and that's why I said, we would consider the question before making the decision, for instance, for those areas with less people, with less residents, much less frequently than in hawkers congested streets and for the major roads, and the thoroughfares, they are entitled to different ways of washing and we are making decision according to the different situations.
MR. FUNG (in English):—Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank Dr. HUANG for his Chinese answer, which is much more explicit than the English translation. May I ask a further supplementary question, that is, in terms of frequency of washing in normal time, that is prior to water restrictions being imposed, how does our programme compare with some of the other well managed cities of the world, such as London, New York and Tokyo? Because in our recent visit to Westminster, I was told that in fact, they washed their streets every night. How do our problems compare to some other well managed countries?
DR. HUANG (in Cantonese):—On this particular point, Mr. Chairman, I don't have any statistical figures, and that's why I can't give you an answer. But I believe that because Hong Kong has a rather congested population, and that's why we can't wash the streets every night. In the future, I believe we all agree that we should have more washing, and we will wait until then.
MR. CHOI (in Cantonese):—Mr. Chairman, because of the water restrictions, we can only wash our streets once every 2 weeks, and for that reason, a lot of our streets are quite dusty. I don't think we should be hindered by that factor because we can explore the possibility of more wells. In the New Territories, I think they are making such wells and so I don't know why the Urban Council cannot make available more wells so that we can have more water to wash our streets?
DR. HUANG (in Cantonese):—Mr. Chairman, I don't think this is a matter as simple as opening up more wells. Now, my own well in Kowloon Tong, dried up after the opening of the Mass Transit System, so if you are going to use the water in the New Territories' wells to wash the urban area, I think it would cost a lot of money.
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