TNAG-1175-FCO40-1477-Proposed-replacement-airport-for-Hong-Kong-at-Deep-Bay-or-Ch-1982 — Page 151

CODE 18.77

CONFIDENTIAL

Reference..

Mr Keep pointed out that a quarter of the total costs of the new airport would in any case arise in the private sector for the provision of such things as maintenance hangars, cargo handling facilities etc. He estimated that the HK Government would have 80-120,000 hectares of useable space at Chep Lap Kok which it did not need for its own facilities which could be made available for these and other purposes. Although he said. that the breakdown of the airport's costs would not be known until next year, Mr Hodges said that they approximate figures were already available and offered to pass these on to Mr Smith-Laittan of the Trade Commission this week.

Mr Keep said that what Hong Kong needed was an efficient and functional airport, rather than a prestige one like Singapore. He was not averse to using the latest technology and did not believe that everything had to be fully tried and tested. On the management arrangements and the size of contracts for the construction of the new airport, he said that an American management consultant, a Professor Peter Wiley of MIT had been appointed to advise on these.

On siting, Mr Keep said that although a site at Deep Bay would fit in well with existing plans for development of New Territories, and would serve better the needs of mainland China as well as Hong Kong, there were geographical as well as political difficulties with that site which had not been properly evaluated. In cost terms he doubted whether there was much to choose between them even if the costs of the bridges to Lantau Island was taken into account. This view was echoed by Mr Hodges. The advantage of Chep Lap Kok as a site in cost terms was that there was no need (as there would be in Deep Bay) to bring in material from elsewhere to bring the site to the required level. This is echoed in the Governor's remarks to Lord Limerick.

The principal dissenting voice we heard to all this came from Mr Scott, who struck me as a sensible, intelligent man with strong views of his own, but who will allow himself to be persuaded by arguments. He is at present firmly against the idea of a new airport, and especially one at Chep Lap Kok.

In brief:

1 he remains to be convinced that a new airport is necessary;

2 the Chep Lap Kok site is expensive, and in the wrong place. It will require a huge investment in infrastructure, which, to be economic, may require the building up of population on Lantau beyond the 400,000 to 500,000 planned in connection with the airport. This might conflict with existing plans for population expansion elsewhere in the New Territories.

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Deep Bay makes much more sense if Hong Kong and Shum Chun are thought of as a single economic region.

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