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416

HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

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This brings me to the point which a number of Members have mentioned and about which I know Mr. BERNACCHI feels very strongly. Although as the third member in the Hawker Supplementary Report, I have expressed the view that unrestricted issuance of the pedlar hawker's licence is not in the best interest of the public, I have refrained from opposing it because at that time there seemed no alternative in view of the problems of enforcing legislation on unlicensed peddling. On 5th April, 1960 I did say in this Council that an effort should be made to divert hawkers into more productive forms of work.

I quote, "If hawkers could be employed in industries which at present are suffering from a labour shortage (evidently 1960 was just the same as 1964), their continuous conversion into unproductive middlemen should be discouraged, and their absorption into productive industry should be encouraged. The modus operandi has to be worked on and this might be done in collaboration with the Labour Department."

Now I would like to propose that since succession to fixed-pitch licences are already subjected to the scrutiny of the Social Welfare Department, the issuance of pedlar licences be also limited to welfare cases, at least not to able-bodied persons between the ages of eighteen to thirty.

To support this view, I made several surveys of the hawkers in Bowrington Road, and Bowrington Road is typical of some fifty streets in this Colony. I found that 80% of the pedlar hawkers are able-bodied persons who could easily be absorbed by industry. On the other hand, pedlar hawkers have fixed their positions opposite fixed-pitch hawkers on Bowrington Road. This is in violation of the Select Committee's policy against having hawkers on both sides of the street. This not only blocks the thoroughfare but obstructs free passage of fire appliances and ambulances.

In this respect, I want to say that although the Department has taken note of and has cleared certain streets during September and October of 1963, I now wish to mention again that the following streets in Hong Kong are far from satisfactory, not only from the point of view of congestion, but also from the point of view of public health. They are Bowrington Road, Stone Nullah Lane, Cross Street, Tai Yuen Street, Wan Chai Road and Chun Yeung Street, Marble Road and Healthy Street East on Hong Kong side, and with due deference to Mr. SALES and other Councillors from Kowloon, there are dirty streets on the Kowloon side; they are Nam Cheong Street, Canton Road, Poplar Street, Bulkeley Street, Pei Ho Street, Nga Tsin Long Road and Carpenter Road. It appears that the solution to cleaner streets lies in more, not less hawker bazaars and multi-purpose markets.

This brings me to the problem of Markets. I wish to quote again a paragraph from the Hawker Supplementary Report of 1962: "The market reconstruction programme has progressed so slowly in the past few years that the expansion of the Hawker Control Force will be completely hamstrung unless a far greater speed of building is achieved."

I now say that not only has the market programme not progressed, it has been at a complete standstill for the last seven years except for the Tang Lung Chau Market which was opened in 1963. Members will remember that the last market opened was the Yau Ma Tei Market exactly seven years ago.

The only other project I know that has progressed slower than the market programme is that of the new Abattoirs. (Laughter). I understand it will have been a full fifteen years between the time of conception and the time of delivery.

During the meeting of the Markets Select Committee in July and in November this year, diverse views were expressed by Members. The Markets Committee did not come to a clear-cut decision because of the opposition of the Department to the market programme in general and to the North Point Market in particular, which is already in Category A of the Public Works Programme.

It is to be noted that the North Point Market was approved in principle in December 1962 and the preliminary building plans were also approved. Since then, because of the slow implementation of the decision to move the hawkers away from Jardine's Bazaar and because the hawkers at first did not take full advantage of the stalls provided for them in the Tang Lung Chau Market, it was proposed to delay the construction of the North Point Market pending the final result of the Tang Lung Chau Market. This was the last decision.

The Tang Lung Chau Market, despite the trials and tribulation, is a success because all the ground floor stalls earmarked for pedlar hawkers are now fully taken. Even the stalls on the second floor are partially taken. This is the strongest reason why Jardine's Bazaar was cleared without further confusion.

There are some who insist that the first floor of a market is unacceptable to vegetable hawkers. This is a point which will be determined entirely by the extent to which we implement our policy. In the Central Market, fish and fowl are on the ground floor, meat is on the first floor, vegetables and fruits are on the second floor. It has worked very well because hawking on Des Voeux Road is prohibited. In the case of the Tang Lung Chau Market, the 48 vegetable fixed pitches were only taken up when Jardine's Bazaar was cleared for traffic. I am aware that only one-eighth of the space on the first floor of the

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