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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Chairman (in Cantonese):—I think the Working Group can liaise with the Department and remind them of this point. In particular, factors like visitor flow, the provision of cubicles and the areas of toilets etc. should be taken into account when designing a big venue.
Ms. GRACE AU YUK-HAR (in Cantonese):-In the Chairman's written reply, it can be clearly seen that the ratio is flexible. In principle, particularly at tourist sight-seeing areas or commercial districts, the number of male cubicles can be increased accordingly. I wonder if the Department or the Urban Council would draw up a plan to conduct a comprehensive review. In the survey, the respondents were not asked as to how long they had waited for using the toilets. The waiting time has not been mentioned. It only points out the percentage of the users who had to wait. Would the Department or the Urban Council consider conducting a review on a further study in this aspect?
CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese):—When designing the survey, we had considered whether the waiting time should be included. However, we later decided that this did not need to be included as no matter how long people had to wait, it was not acceptable. Besides, there would be difficulties to get the answer for this question, for it would be a time-keeping job on individual basis. Timing each and every respondent would make the survey complicated. Therefore, we only calculated the percentage of toilet users having to wait at tourist areas. It was found that the rate of male users having to wait for urination was 21%. That means, of 100 male users for urination, 21 of them had to wait. In other words, one in every five male users for urination had to wait. We only need to know if any persons have to wait. It is not necessary to find out the usage time, and there would be technical problems to conduct the survey this way. Therefore, we did not look at this point. Whenever people have to wait, regardless of 5 minutes or 10 minutes, it is unacceptable. People should not have to wait. Hence, we just counted how many of them had to wait to find out the seriousness of the problem. For instance, whether one or two people out of 5 toilet users needed to wait, or only one out of 100 toilet users had to wait. Hence, in conducting the survey, we deliberately omitted the actual time required by the toilet users in using the toilets. Instead, we just focused on the number of people having to wait. If the survey was too complicated, much resources, manpower and time would have to be involved. Owing to staffing restraint, this item was not included in the survey.
If there is no other question, let's jump to question 6 which is raised by Mr. LEE Kwok-keung. As Mr. PAO Ping-wing, who is going to answer this question, has to leave the meeting early because of another official commitment, would Mr. LEE Kwok-keung please raise his question now.
(6) MR. LEE KWOK-KEUNG asked the following question (in Cantonese):- Hong Kong has many non profit-making performing groups. As they do not have any business income, the Urban Council's subsidy is extremely important
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