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486
HONG KONG PROVISIONAL URBAN COUNCIL
pollution have been allocated to the Urban Council to build small parks. Actually, those venues have negative effects on the thoracic and pulmonary development of young children and the thoracic and pulmonary health of the elderly. Therefore, I urge the Urban Services Department to first identify the category of land when it obtains land from the Government. We have said on various occasions that the Urban Council should not accept land exposed to serious pollution and build ‘fake urban lungs' on it.
The third point I would like to pursue is that on many occasions, land allocated to the Urban Council has to undergo examination and approval or competition and even shunning of responsibility and delays at government department level before they are finally turned over to the Urban Council. Recently, we saw that some of the land by the side of Charming Garden in West Kowloon reclamation area, which was originally designated for the construction of an Urban Council complex, was being affected by the Western Corridor Railway and progress was unsatisfactory. After the airport has moved to its new site, some newly-reclaimed land, together with other pieces of land will be allocated to the Urban Council in the near future. Here, I request the Government departments concerned to carry out proper planning for projects and land supply programmes so that residents who move in from new districts will not become cattle engaging in opening up wasteland in the 21st Century.
I will now speak on the relationships between the Urban Council and Government departments, namely, the Architectural Services Department and the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department. In 1997, the relationships between the Urban Council and these departments were full of uncertainties. Most of the Urban Councillors had many criticisms in areas which these departments performed unsatisfactorily, and they earnestly hoped that the departments concerned would improve. After the Library issue, it was very interesting that on one hand, the Urban Council said that it would study the idea of contracting out the design and management of some projects, while on the other hand, some officials of the departments said that they wished to 'quit once and for all.' Is it a reflection of the officials' conservative attitude and their lack of courage to face challenges when these departments consider terminating the provision of services for the Urban Council? Fortunately, in the large-scale capital works managed by the Urban Council at present, the 'quitting once and for all' among other departments is not serious. Therefore, we hope to maintain the motion approved by this Council and increase the participation of outside sectors in the design and management of Urban Council's capital works. At the same time, we have to call upon certain government departments to be more open and rise to the challenges when they undertake projects that the Urban Council and the government have made a commitment.
In the second part of my speech, I would like to express my concern for a review of district councils. I personally feel that the question of whether or not
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