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In the short term, efforts will continue be made to identify short term tenancy sites for container lorry parking and to seek the granting of planning permission for such uses by the Town Planning Board. In this connection, nine applications involving 10 hectares of temporary container trailer parking areas in San Tin with a total capacity of 900 parking spaces have been approved by the Town Planning Board.

To cater for the longer term demand for parking container trucks, the possibility of developing a multi-storey container lorry park at Kwai Chung for 1,400 container lorries is being examined. The study result is expected to be available in early 1996. Moreover, with a view to examining the overall vehicle parking problem, a Parking Demand Study was commissioned by the Transport Department and it will be completed in December this year. The results of the study will provide an indication of existing and future parking related problems for all vehicles and will recommend measures to meet the parking demand in Hong Kong.

(c) As the Hon Member has rightly pointed out, most of the land zoned as open storage is private land. It is therefore difficult for government to direct that such land should be used only as container parking lots and container parks. What the Administration aims to do is to step up enforcement actions on unauthorised development, as well as publicity, so as to induce operators to move from unauthorised sites to areas properly designated for open storage and container parking purposes. Another factor to consider is that open storage of containers and tractors and trailer park would be a relatively viable operation in terms of capital investment and in comparison to agricultural uses. Landowners would take the opportunity to use the land for such purposes if they could realise a better financial return.

End/Wednesday, November 15, 1995

Old age allowance

Following is a question by the Hon Cheung Hon-chung and a reply by the Secretary for Health and Welfare, Mrs Katherine Fok, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):

Question:

Will the Government inform this Council: