TNAG-0316-FCO40-352-Reform-of-local-government-of-Hong-Kong-1971 — Page 143

CONFIDENTIAL

-7.

Building and Works Expenditure

6.

;

Capital expenditure on such Urban Council building

and works items as parks, swinning pools, beach facilities, bathhouses, latrines, markets and hawkers bazaars has varied in recent years between about $3 million and $7 million, including furniture and equipment costs and excluding abattoir and incinterators (which, it is proposed, should continue to be built by the Public Works Department at Government's expense if the Urban Council

so wishes), and excluding also swimming pools and parks financed by the Jockey Club. These annual expenditure figures do not include the annual block vote for parks and playgrounds, provision for which is made under the urban Services Department's Special Expenditure sub-head.

7.

se.

The proposal that the Public Works Department should continue to design and build abattoirs, incinerators and crematoria (and possibly other types of installations) rests on the highly technical nature of these installations, in which the Public Works Department has over the years acquired considerable exper Such expenditure should in theory be financed from loans raised by the Urban Council, but their high cost suggests that it could be appropriate for the Government to finance then, as well as any other buildings built at Government's wish; in this event Government will have a say as to when and what to build. However, the Urban Council should be free, if it so wishes, to take over responsibility for planning, building (and even financing) such installations.

8.

The method of financing the Urban Council's buildings and works progranne will hinge to some extent on whether it has control of any assets which it could offer as collateral for loans in the open market. The intention is that the Council should not have any disposable interest in the land and buildings which it occupies. This is partly due to the enormous administrative problems of giving the urban Council legal title to the many areas of land which it occupies, and partly due to the undesirability in principle of giving the Council such title.

CONFIDENTIAL

/Given