TNAG-1364-FCO40-1810-Hong-Kong-Hansard-reports-and-minutes-of-the-meetings-of-the-1986 — Page 53

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(c) the design of the new depot would ensure

that the sidings and workshop would be screened off from nearby residential

development by the Company's own building.

The proposed site for the new tram depot at Sai Ying Pun is currently used as a lorry park. A tram depot is unlikely to generate more noise than is produced by the heavy vehicles currently using the lorry park. Indeed, I would hope that the noise reduction measures to which I have already referred would lead to an improvement in noise levels in the area.

A tram depot at this site would not cause any major traffic congestion problems. Trams would only use the depot outside peak hours, when the traffic along both Whitty Street and Connaught Road West was light. Nevertheless, necessary traffic management measures would be made to ensure that the tram depot was fully compatible with the traffic flow in the area. In the longer term, consultants currently employed to examine the upgrading of Connaught Road West would take account of a tram depot at this location in devising future traffic management schemes in the area.

Although the site in question was originally zoned for local open space, it is not an attractive location for such use since it falls partly under a flyover. In the latest draft layout plan for the Western Reclamation, it has been re-designated as a tram depot. An alternative site, some 300 metres to the east, has now been designated as parkland. This would more than compensate for the loss of the original site since it is nearly seven times larger.

/Sir,