XN000022-1995-07-26 — Page 46

· 34 ·

Public housing estates' maintenance

Following is a question by Dr the Hon Huang Chen-ya and a written reply by the Secretary for Housing, Mr Dominic Wong, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):

Question:

Will the Government inform this Council whether it is aware of the investigations being carried out by the Hong Kong Housing Authority and the Hong Kong Housing Society to identify structural problems in public housing estates of different ages under their management; if so, how many estate blocks have been investigated in the past three years; and how many have been found to be in need of repair because of concrete spalling and corroded steel bars problems; and what percentages they represent in estate blocks of various ages?

Answer:

Mr President,

The Government monitors the maintenance and repair programmes of both the Housing Authority and the Housing Society.

Over the past three years, the Housing Authority has inspected the structural safety of 609 housing blocks built before 1981. Of these, 140 needed repair as a result of varying degrees of concrete spalling and corrosion of steel reinforcing bars.

The Housing Society inspects all its 162 housing blocks annually, and refers those which need further investigation to structural consultants. In the past three years, structural consultants inspected 29 blocks, all of which required varying degrees of repair for concrete spalling.

All the blocks were found to be structurally safe.

•