TNAG-0208-FCO40-244-Discussions-about-extension-to-Kai-Tak-airport-1969 — Page 94

1.4. in the

2

reactions of Treasury and O.D.M.; and whether we should not now abandon it, openly and publicly, and take a straight decision now as to whether and to what extent we should proceed, based solely on our own buses of the art interests (to the extent that we

interests (to the extent that we are allowed by H.M.G. to prosecute these interests). We cannot forecast just how this will go in Executive Council, for whom we are about to prepare a paper in this sense.

anesjumt he

has refund to пришив

maks.

5.

As to timing, there is perhaps some misunder- standing about the critical date. It will be some three or four months or so before the Consultants' have completed their planning work and we are in a position to go to tender. But increasingly we are incurring expenditure on Consultants fees which may turn out to be nugatory if in the end we have to decide to scrap the extension in whole or part; while, if we decide to do so only in part, there will be further time and fees wasted while tender documents, etc. are adjusted. In this sense we have little or no time left.

6.

There are two further concepts I should like to suggest for exploration. The first is that, whatever the position may be in terms of comparative commercial or economic benefit from extension or non-extension, there is the human problem of the greater risk to life, of residents as well as passengers, represented by the use of an inadequate Kai Tak by the next generation of aircraft (and they will come in; the first 747 is due to arrive next spring). I would suggest that, apart from the ICAO obligations referred to in the Board of Trade note, Britain has some responsibility towards the protection of residents against the dangers arising from an airport, the use of which she controls in her own interest.

7.

The second point is that the appropriate assessment to set against the Board of Trade's assessment of the benefit of Kai Tak to British aviation interests is not the benefit to Hong Kong of an extended runway but the loss to Hong Kong arising from H.M.G's restrictive exercise of its power to control air traffic rights at Kai Tak - I am speaking, consistently with my paragraph 3 above, in terms of direct airport revenue lost rather than of the indirect economic effects of restricted traffic, although both losses in fact arise. The former type of loss would not, it is true, be easy to assess but it could be done with a rather lower degree of uncertainty than the assessment you request.