(b)
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what preparatory or preliminary work, consultancy studies and design works of the project have been completed now; and whether the KCRC has notified, or obtained the agreement of, the Government before undertaking the consultancy studies and design works?
Reply:
Mr President,
As a next stage of their consultancy work, KCRC plan to carry out a series of technical studies, comprising 20 contracts and costing approximately HK$750 million. To date 11 of them costing approximately HK$560 million have been tendered, but no contracts have yet been awarded. The scope of these technical studies will cover the entire railway from West Kowloon to Tuen Mun Central, Lok Ma Chau and Lo Wu; details are annexed to this reply.
These technical studies are essential for developing the Western Corridor Railway project from the present conceptual level to a level of detail that is sufficient to establish a firm alignment, resolve key engineering and other issues identified, and improve the accuracy of the estimated project cost. In other words they will provide the necessary information to support in-depth consideration and decisions by Government.
KCRC's present estimate is that the project will require some 400 hectares of land, of which 270 hectares of government land will need to be cleared and 130 hectares of private land resumed. These involve a large number of residential, agricultural, commercial and village areas, as well as more than one thousand graves. According to a preliminary assessment recently completed by Lands Department, this resumption and clearance exercise will take about 5 years to complete. This suggests that construction is likely to have to begin later than envisaged in KCRC's proposed programme, and that the target completion date will have to be revised accordingly, to beyond 2001.
Given this development, it may no longer be necessary for KCRC to proceed with their planned technical studies all at the same time. Government has therefore asked KCRC to consider limiting at the present stage the scope of the studies to those which are essential for establishing a firm alignment for the Western Corridor Railway, so as to minimise the requirements for land resumption and clearance.
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