XN000022-1997-04-09 — Page 28

Reply:

(c)

(d)

(e)

Mr President,

11.

of the total number of celebration activities organised by the Government to mark the opening of the Lantau Link, as well as the specific plan and estimated number of participants in respect of each activity;

of the specific plans drawn up by the Government concerning the security and traffic control measures to be adopted in connection with the activities mentioned in the answer to (c) above; and whether the extent of nuisance that may be caused to the public has been fully considered while formulating such plans;

apart from providing entertainment to the public, of the other reasons, including political reasons, for organising the fireworks display and other large-scale public activities to mark the opening of a highway?

The Lantau Link Opening Ceremony is part of a series of ceremonies marking the completion of each of the five projects which form the transport corridor of the Airport Core Programme (ACP) running from Central District to Tung Chung New Town. The specific answers to the question are as follows:

(a)

The application for the staging of a fireworks display as part of the Ceremony was approved after having taken into account a number of factors including likely public reaction and safety requirements. When the proposal was first submitted to Government, the Administration's assessment was that this would be acceptable to the community as a whole, subject to satisfactory arrangements being worked out on crowd control, traffic arrangements, and transport facilities in consultation with relevant District Boards and affected local residents.

We started our consultation on a preliminary proposal on crowd control, traffic, and public transport arrangements in early March. So far, three District Boards and the Airport Consultative Committee have been consulted. The general feeling was supportive of the display and specific proposals had been made to improve on the preliminary proposal. We plan to finalize the detailed arrangements in mid April in the light of the views collected during the consultation exercise.