TNAG-2959-FCO40-4238-Future-of-Hong-Kong-British-Consulate-General-building-incl-1993 — Page 55

RESTRICTED

MANAGEMENT IN CONFIDENCE

ROUTINE

ZCZC

RESTRICTED

MANAGEMENT IN CONFIDENCE

FM FCO

TO ROUTINE BTC HONG KONG

TELNO

OF 151208Z JAN 93

DRAFT

FAXED

Vin

COMMS CEN 15/1

I TO OED.

HKD BL 408/2

REC

15 JAN 1993

FROM BERTRAM, OED

2

3

INDE

1

OUR TELNO 2 AND YOUR TELN011: BUDGET IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE

CONSULATE-GENERAL

1.

-

We appreciate your concern to know more about the issues

covered in first TUR. Please reassure your committee that there

has never been any intention of keeping its members in the dark.

We are sorry that we were not able to bring you and indeed Mr

Hum's Steering committee into the picture at an earlier stage.

We had hoped to avoid facing you with making cuts in the

building. Once this appeared inevitable, we sought to move as

fast as possible to prevent decisions on these difficult choices

holding up the critical path for construction. With hindsight it

would have been better to have postponed the 6 January Steering

Committee meeting until we had canvassed the views of

allconcerned, (in particular your committee) on the proposed

cuts. We hope that the information in this telegram will give

you a better insight into where we now stand on building costs

and how we arrived at this position.

2.

BUDGET

HKD

D BARNES JONES

270 2068

5