1989 — Page 36

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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

ADDRESS BY CHAIRMAN

CHAIRMAN (in English):-Ladies and Gentlemen, the meeting is called to order. I have one announcement to make. Councillor, Samuel WONG has bee elected as the President of Hong Kong Institution of Engineers. Congra tulations, Sam. (Applause)

MINUTES

The minutes of the meeting held on 13 June 1989, were confirmed.

PAPER

The following paper was laid on the table:

(1) Report to the Urban Council by the Director of Urban Services and

Secretary, Urban Council, for the month of June 1989.

QUESTIONS

1. MR. FUNG KWONG-CHUNG asked the following question (in Cantonese):- Many unlicensed itinerant hawkers start their hawking activities at 6 o'clock in the early morning. As pavements and public areas are often occupied by these hawkers, students and pedestrians using such roads are forced to walk on the road where vehicles travel, thus causing potential danger to these people. In this connection, I have received complaints about the unsatisfactory situation at the junction of Tai Shing Street and Tai Tung Street and of Tai Shing Street and Tung Tau Chuen Road in Wong Tai Sin. As the General Duties Team of USD only start to perform its duties at 7.45 a.m. May I be told:

(a) How may the Council improve the above situation so as to reduce the inconvenience caused to pedestrians when they are going to office or to school?

(b) Will the General Duties Team deal with the problem in a flexible way to meet

the needs of individual cases?

(c) As some members of the General Duties Team were assaulted in the execution of their duties at Tai Shing Street, I wish to know what steps have been taken by Council to ensure their safety at work?

MR. HILTON CHEONG-LEEN, CHAIRMAN OF THE MARKETS AND STREET TRADERS SELECT COMMITTEE replied as follows (in English):-Mr. Chairman, this question concerns generally the complaint by the public on the unsatisfactory situation arising from illegal hawking activities in the early morning on the pavements and public areas around Tai Shing Street and in particular asks the following questions in three parts:

HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

(a) how may the Council improve the situation?

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(b) will the General Duties Team deal with the problem in a flexible way?

and

(c) as some members of the General Duties Team were assaulted in the execution of their duties at the area, what steps have been taken by the Council to ensure their safety at work?

I would like first to comment in general on the situation of illegal hawking activities in the Tai Shing Street area. Since the demolition of the Wong Tai Sin Market and the old-type housing estate in that area, there has been an upsurge of illegal hawkers trading in the vicinity of Tai Shing Street outside the Tai Shing Street Temporary Market. These hawkers usually begin to operate in the early morning at about 6 a.m. There are about 286 illegal hawkers trading daily in the vicinity. The presence of illegal hawking activities on pavements has caused obstruction to pedestrian traffic and brought with it associated nuisances. The General Duties Team (GDT) has been taking regular enforce- ment action whenever resources are available taking into consideration other commitments. Between January and June this year, the GDT has carried out a total of 506 raids in the area resulting in the arrest of 446 illegal hawkers, and made 144 seizures of abandoned hawker goods and paraphernalia.

As to the three specific questions asked,

(a) How may the Council improve the situation?

As the resources on hawker control, namely, General Duties Team, are limited at present, hawker control work by USD staff must be restricted to the normal working hours of the staff, which are between 8 a.m. to 10.30 p.m. To effectively improve the situation in this area it would obviously be necessary to station GDT there early in the morning before the hawkers arrive, i.e. beginning from 5 a.m. or 5.30 a.m. I am afraid that the existing staff resources do not permit the USD to do this. It is, moreover, the Council's present position that the control of hawkers is a composite problem and responsibility is shared with other organs of Government. Having said that, I shall still be asking the Urban Services Department to examine what further action can be taken to improve the situation.

(b) Can the GDT deal with the problem in a flexible manner?

The GDT is indeed doing exactly this and has carried out early morning raiding operations periodically with the assistance of the Police, resulting in the number of arrests I have mentioned earlier. Such deterrent action has at least stopped the situation from further deteriorating.

(c) What steps have been taken by Council to lessen the risk to GDT in the

execution of duties?

There were 17 cases of assault on GDT members reported in Wong Tai Sin District between January 1988 and up to June this year, of which 5 occurred at Tai Shing Street area. These were all minor incidents