TNAG-0657-FCO40-806-Town-planning-in-Hong-Kong-1977 — Page 17

ANNEX D

布政司署

香港下亞座畢道

ENV 94/75/05 II

本署檔號 OUR REF.:

* YOUR Ref.:

R. Barretto, Esq.,

Hong Kong Heritage Society, 1903 Hang Chong Building,

5 Queen's Road Central, Hong Kong.

Dear Sir,

GOVERNMENT SECRETARIAT

LOWER ALBERT ROAD

HONG KONG

5th July 1977

recd 7/7/77

Thank you for your letter of 29th June 1977. I am afraid that you may have misunderstood me if you thought that the Government would be able to provide you with all the information you sought in order to help you prepare your petition. What I did say was that we might be in a position to provide you with information on some of the questions you asked, but not on others - and I then used question 7 as an example of the latter. But there are others, such as questions 2, 4, 5 and 8 which are difficult to answer.

In what follows I think it must be borne in mind that this issue has already been the subject of two statutory processes. The first was under the Town Planning Ordinance, whereby the area occupied by the Kowloon Station was rezoned in Plan LK 1/44 for Open Space and for road purposes, but with the clock tower being retained. This plan was approved by the Governor in Council on 8th November 1967 after the Town Planning Board had completed the statutory procedures for calling for objections. As you know, this plan is currently under revision and the Town Planning Board has now recommended that the site now occupied by the station building should be part of the Cultural Centre. The point I would wish to underline, however, is that as long ago as 1967 the statutory planning of this area predicated a use which would have involved the removal of the station building.

The second statutory procedure under which this matter has been considered is the Antiquities and Monuments Ordinance. As you are aware, the Antiquities Advisory Board recommended that the clock tower and facade of the station should be scheduled as a monument within the meaning of that Ordinance, but that His Excellency the Governor did not approve the recommendation.

Turning to the points in your schedule, the following are as many of the answers as it is appropriate for me to give in the context of decisions taken under statutory powers :-

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