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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Objectives of a Good Market
A good market should be consumer oriented, commercially viable for stall operators and providing a good environment for shopping. These objectives can be achieved by good market design and efficient and effective market management.
Criteria of a Good Market Design
A good market design should meet the following criteria:
(a) Location—should be convenient and acceptable to the public, with a large catchment area of nearby residents as patrons of the market;
(b) Access—should be conveniently and easily accessible by public transport;
(c) Convenience should provide car parking facilities for park-and-shop users;
(d) Clean and hygienic—should have no bad smell and no wet or dirty floor; and
(e) Commercial viability—the stalls should be easily visible from the outside and other parts of the market.
Problems of Urban Council Markets and Proposed Solutions
(1) Location—a good market should be located in an area with sufficiently large population. Thus, the market location should be carefully considered by the Town Planning Board in planning for markets, which should be within 5 to 10 minutes walk from the residential areas. It is rare that markets dependent on local workers in nearby offices or factories are commercially viable. For example, the markets in Lockhart Road, Wan Chai, Mong Kok, Kwai Chung and To Kwa Wan have become inviable as a result of redevelopment of the residential areas into commercial areas. Also, small markets which are evenly distributed geographically should be more popular than a large central market covering a large area.
(2) Accessibility—a good market should be conveniently accessible by public transport, with the provision of footbridges, subways and escalators. Where public transport is not readily available for certain markets, there should be car parking facilities within the market buildings or in the vicinity.
(3) Number of Floors—normally, housewives prefer to patronise markets located on the ground floor or first level. Surveys conducted in the past also revealed that market stalls located on the second level or above are not commercially viable. However, with good planning, second level markets in large catchment areas with adequate residents should also be viable.
Hitherto, a maximum of about 200 stalls are planned for a market in order to avoid business being over-competitive and yet to provide a good variety of goods items, and escalators are installed to facilitate access to the upper floors. In fact, the second level can be designed as an open space fica market, to be rented out on a daily basis for selling other goods items. This new design may attract people, other than the usual housewife type market-goers, to patronise this upper floor.
Page 227 of 485
Page 227 of 485
Page 227 of 485