1994 — Page 42

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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

Forecast and the Department plans to increase its Tree Section staff annually over the next few years to match the increasing workload.

For additional trees planted in parks and gardens, additional manpower for the maintenance have already been included in the overall staff establishment.

Members may wish to note that staff request has been made to set up a separate 'Green Office' to co-ordinate the organization of various Green Hong Kong Campaign programmes, including tree planting.

As regards the second part of the question, the Tree Section with its two gangs routinely carry out tree maintenance on a daily basis including duties such as:

(a) tree inspections and removal of items such as nails, posters, and wires

in order to protect the trees;

(b) tree pruning to remove sight obstruction of traffic signs and street

lighting;

(c) routine maintenance such as fertilising, watering, weeding and

mulching trees; and

(d) routine inspection to ensure the stability of trees.

During the winter months, the Tree Section staff carry out a pruning programme of large trees to reduce their crown weight so that they may have less resistance to strong winds. The Tree Sections also deals with requests from public transport companies, Government departments and members of the public as part of an assistance programme to the community.

MR. JUSTEIN WONG CHUN (in Cantonese): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have two questions. First of all, have we ever considered privatising these services? Secondly, have we ever considered using a sponsoring system to let certain companies sponsor the maintenance of trees in certain areas so that there will be a good relationship between companies and the people of Hong Kong. This will also reduce the expenditure of the Urban Council.

Mr. Ma Lee-wo (in Cantonese):-Thank you. We have not considered the these two issues. But as far as privatisation and sponsorship are concerned, I think it is worthwhile to consider these in the future. I believe this can reduce our expenditure if there are companies sponsoring these maintenance programmes, and I think it is worth considering. However, we have to be very careful with privatisation because it is our responsibility to maintain and preserve the trees. I wonder if it is suitable for us to contract these out to private companies. This is very different from contracting out our cleansing services to outside companies. Perhaps we could try out on a small scale to see how effective the experiment is before we proceed further, but I don't think we should decide on whether to proceed today. We would discuss the two valuable proposals raised by Mr. WONG at our future Working Group meetings.

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(3) MR. RONNIE WONG MAN-CHIU asked the following question (in Cantonese): It is understood that many market stalls of the Council are vacant, and that instead of using their stalls for business purpose, many staff operators also use them as storerooms. As this situation is becoming more serious, may I know the reason behind it? Did the Department decide on the selection of the market sites and their designs without fully taking into account various factors involved? Is it necessary for the Council to review its policy towards those stalls which are left vacant or not properly used?

MR. IP KWOK-CHUNG, CHAIRMAN OF THE MARKETS AND STREET TRADERS SELECT COMMITTEE, replied as follows (in Cantonese):-This question concerns vacancies in our markets and the use of market stalls for storage purposes.

It is, of course, true that we do have vacancies in our UC Markets but the overall occupancy rate at about 87% is very high. Out of our large stock of market stalls it would be surprising if there were not some unsatisfactory stalls. Such stalls are particularly prevalent in our older markets which in design and location terms are in many cases seriously flawed. It is also true that numbers of stalls, although tenanted, are being used for storage purposes. Again, this is particularly prevalent in older and less viable markets. There is, however, no evidence whatsoever that these problems are increasing. On the contrary the problem has been declining over the past several years. This improvement has been brought about by a number of measures such as:

-delinking market development and hawker reprovisioning; in general

building only 2-storey markets;

--in general building only 2-storey markets;

-accepting from Government only sites where have a high expectation of

viability;

-improved market design features; and

-more focus being given to better market management

We acknowledge that there remain a number of design flaws even in our newer markets and for this reason Council will shortly be implementing a competition to elicit new ideas and solutions. Although this competition will not be a replica of the very successful and very useful Public Toilet Design Competition we were inspired by that competition and expect it to be equally useful.

Certainly the use of any market stall for any purpose other than the intended purpose is contrary to the market tenancy agreement and enforcement action can and is taken. In certain older markets, however, which are unviable in whole or in part a degree of toleration has been exercised since termination of such tenancies would mean that no rentals would be received and there would be no prospect of a further letting. This problem, however, is one of historical origin and in time as markets are redeveloped or replaced it will largely disappear.

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