1983 — Page 126

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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

order. The day before yesterday, we started our debate on the Aims for 19: CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese):-Ladies and Gentlemen, the meeting is called

and today we carry on with the debate.

MR. HOWARD YOUNG (in English):—Mr. Chairman,

Urban Council Delegation to U.K.

Last Autumn, I together with 3 other Councillors and yourself had the chan to visit the United Kingdom as part of an official delegation of the Urb Council. The report of that visit has been presented to all Councillors presen but there are two particular areas in which I have a special interest that

perhaps worth highlighting here today. One of these is keeping the city cle

and the second is in the field of recreational facilities.

Cleansing

At Wandsworth Borough near London, we observed how one local author had introduced privatization of street cleansing. From what we observed from the visit, within a very short time, there was an achievement of 'Three Lesses Less refuse and litter on the streets, Less rate payers' money was necessary maintain the cleanliness of the city, and complaints from the public abe rubbish became Less than ever before. The local authorities, instead becoming the sole provider of labour, equipment and supervision of cleansing services, turned themselves into a management and enforcement body t contracting out cleansing services to private contractors.

Although the environment and circumstances in Hong Kong are not the same as U.K., I believe any measure that could lead to doing a better job at less cost commendable. The reasons for privatization are also different, for instance, the Borough we visited was having trouble in getting its labour force to do a ful day's productive work, whereas in Hong Kong I have said before during the Clean Hong Kong Campaign that our beat-sweepers are amongst the most har: working and efficient in the world. But, we must not be complacent and w should recognize that there may well be some things private enterprise can de better than Government. Even during the Clean Hong Kong Campaign, a few places in the New Territories experimented with contracting local villagers :: keep some remote villages clean, and I understand the schemes were successfu Although one of my colleagues did mention this and propose it two days ago. The Clean Hong Kong Committee has recently discussed the issue e privatization and we already have the support of one particular area in Easter District where progress has been made in getting such a scheme off the ground The Department will hopefully very shortly be selecting a private contractor implement a trial scheme to see whether or not we can achieve the same degre of success as elsewhere, and to see to what extent it can be introduced on wider basis.

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To remove all apprehensions, I should state from the outset that the objective not to save money by cutting corners. The first objective is to get the Contractor to do a better job than the Department can do in the area selected for experiment. The second objective is to preferably do it at less cost. In other words, we want to give better value for money to the public who are by and large the ratepayers who pay rates to the Urban Council to keep Hong Kong dean, and who are the first ones to benefit from a cleaner and better environment. In order to evaluate this trial, I hope the Department can work closely with the residents, Mutual Aid Committee and District Board members the location involved to give the private contractor close supervision and monitor the results very closely to ensure there is an improvement in the standard of cleanliness. Then the Department should calculate all true costs nvolved in achieving this standard, and only by then can we conclude whether the scheme is successful. We do not wish to draw foregone conclusions at this stage, and while we would be very delighted to see success, we should not be fraid of admitting failure should facts prove that this is so.

Actificial Turf

Another area which impressed us in U.K. was the wide use of artificial turf for Fotball pitches. To date, we have yet to see an international size artificial turf football pitch in Hong Kong, although we do have two small or sub-standard

nes in the Urban area plus an artificial turf hockey pitch.

Football is one of the most popular sports in Hong Kong that not only provides a healthy past-time for participants who play on the field, it also has a high entertainment value judging by the crowds that often turn out to watch a good game. In fact the game is so popular that our main venue for football— The Hong Kong Stadium, has been terribly over-used to the extent that the grass wears out easily, risking turning the whole stadium into a dustbowl. The risk has decreased recently when we cut down on the number of matches that are allowed, but while this improves the quality of the grass, it in turn disappoints many football clubs and their fans who would like to see more matches.

One of the ways to do this is to promote more artificial turf and to even have full international size pitches. It is estimated that a full size artificial turf football pitch would cost $4 million to $6 million depending on the quality and type of artificial surface. I agree that this is not a small amount of capital expenditure, particularly at this point in time where we are facing a deficit. However, we must try and judge whether this is money well spent, and like the case of privatization of cleansing, what is important in the end is that our users are getting better value for money.

When looking at the cost of an artificial turf pitch, we must not forget that the annual maintenance cost of a grass football pitch is about $90,000 whereas it is only about $5,000 for an artificial turf. Nonetheless, the savings in maintenance