ENG-1990 — Page 271

LAND, PUBLIC WORKS AND UTILITIES

World War II bomb damage to the granite facade of the Legislative Council Building in Central.

Major projects completed included the restoration of Kun Ting Study Hall at Ping Shan. This traditional style building was constructed around 1840 by a prosperous village elder named Tang Kun-ting as a centre to study for the Imperial Civil Service Examinations and martial arts. Due to the building's architectural importance and its rare link with the past it was gazetted an Historic Monument in 1990. The building was designed in a two-hall style with adjoining wings all containing superb timber carvings as well as panels and murals.

Restoration and fitting-out was undertaken to the Old Kai Fong Association building in Tsim Sha Tsui to provide the headquarters for the Antiquities and Monuments Office. The red-brick building was originally constructed as the Kowloon English School in 1902. The old School Assembly Hall in the building will be used for public audio/visual exhibitions showing aspects of conservation in Hong Kong.

The Royal Observatory, one of the finest examples of Colonial-style architecture in the region and a Declared Monument, also benefited from a major restoration and re- furbishment exercise.

The Architectural Services Department through its Subvented Projects Division, con- tinued to provide advice to other government departments which provide subvention to private organisations for building, repair and maintenance works. The combined govern- ment commitments on subvented projects via the Capital Works Reserve Fund and the Lotteries Fund exceeds $8,900 million and expenditure is expected to be in excess of $1,500 million during the year. These sums exclude private funding.

Drainage Services

The Drainage Services Department was formed on September 1, 1989, by combining into one department those sections of the Civil Engineering Services Department and the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department which were dealing with sewerage, sewage treatment, or storm-water drainage. It is a multi-disciplinary department which includes civil engineers, electrical and mechanical engineers, chemists, land surveyors, quantity surveyors and related technical grades, which can provide a more concentrated and efficient approach in resolving the problems of water pollution due to sewage and of flooding. These problems have become more serious in recent years due to the growth in population and in urbanisation in the territory and, in respect of flooding, due to development in the flood plains of the North and North-west New Territories.

The responsibility of the Drainage Services Department is basically the disposal of foul water and rain water. The disposal of foul water, that is domestic sewage and trade and industrial effluent, is based on standards, strategies and programmes drawn up by the Environmental Protection Department. From a programme implementation point of view projects can be divided into three categories: 'existing schemes' which are sewerage or sewage treatment projects which have been in the public works programme since before the new strategy evolved and which are compatible with the new strategy for the treatment and disposal of sewage to satisfy new water quality standards; 'sewerage masterplan schemes' which are sewerage rehabilitation and improvement projects resulting from recent studies, and the 'strategic network schemes' which are schemes to collect all the sewage from Hong Kong, Kowloon, and Tsuen Wan/Kwai Chung, into a deep tunnel intercepting sewer system which will discharge, after treatment on Stonecutters Island, through a long sea

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