8. A member of this Sub-Committee elicited the information from the Chairman, at the meeting of the General Committee on the 4th November, that the hill within Kowloon Tong Estate, marked on the Town-planning Map, as reserved for Railway pur- poses, will be cut down to road level and be maintained as a park. We are definitely of opinion that this area, as well as all others within the Estate, intended for playgrounds and 'lungs' should be permanently reserved as such, by legislative enactment if necessary, against building encroachments in future.
9. We have not been able to overhaul the remainder of the Peninsula. Some portions have already been dealt with by the General Committee, for example, the reclaim- ed swamp near the proposed Nathan Square and other ground in the Prince Edward Road region, at both ends of the road.
10. We have recommended what we consider are minimum requirements for public grounds. There are many other areas which we have examined but, for one reason or other, do not recommend. We hold the opinion that certain of the spaces we have named should be resumed from private ownership at an early date.
J. P. BRAGA,
E. COCK,
Kowloon Sub-Committee,
Playing Fields Committee.
Kowloon, 18th November, 1929.
APPENDIX VIII.
MEMORANDUM REGARDING PUBLIC. TENNIS COURTS.
I beg to request the Committee to ask the Government to provide public tennis courts. It is impossible for anyone who does not belong to one or other of the many clubs to get a game of tennis, probably the most international of all games. I am sure, although I cannot prove it, that there are many Chinese who, educated in one or other of the foreign schools cannot get opportunities to play tennis which they probably have learnt at school and there are other nationals also who are similarly situated.
Public Municipal tennis courts are provided at Shanghai, New York, Chicago, Vancouver and I understand Australia as well as at home. The game is one which can be and is played by artificial light and courts on which play was possible up to, say 10 p.m. would be a boon to people who generally work until 5 p.m. or later and whom darkness prevents from having any other daily exercise than a walk when their evening meal is over. In King's Park there is ground which is unsuitable for football, which, if made into tennis courts would increase the area used for football. as the netting around the tennis courts would stop footballs from going into the roads. The ground I refer to is at the South end of the two public football grounds-it is level and would call for the minimum expenditure. There is other ground in Kowloon notably the railway ground at Yaumati which is too irregular to turn into large recreation fields but which could be terraced into courts.
I would suggest a start with three courts at each of these places.
The cost of construction and running these courts would be a minute fraction of Government expenditure and I see no reason why they should be refused on the ground that they may not be self supporting although I believe that in the course of time they will be so, besides, a given area will serve more people if it is divided up into courts for tennis and such like games than if it were kept for football and I submit that the neces- sity is as great as public bathing beaches and the seasonable operations of the one could coincide with the termination of the other, thereby using the same staff throughout the
year.
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