ENG-1991 — Page 199

HEALTH

environment and management of markets will also be taken into consideration in the planning and design of Regional Council markets in future.

Hawkers

The Urban Council is responsible for the licensing of street hawkers in the urban areas. By the end of December 1991, there were 13 600 hawker licences, 500 less than in 1990. The decrease was partly due to efforts by the council to move on-street hawkers into newly-completed markets. The completion of the Wan Chai Temporary Market and the Shek Tong Tsui Market in 1991 made it possible to resite 180 on-street licensed hawkers trading in the vicinity. Moreover, steady progress is being made in a scheme introduced at the beginning of 1990 for itinerant hawkers to surrender their licences, on a voluntary basis, in exchange for an ex-gratia payment, a fixed-pitch hawker licence or a market mini-stall tenancy. By the end of 1991, 1 300 licences were returned under this scheme.

Following the recommendations of the Urban Council's Working Party on Hawker and Related Policies, efforts have been made to relax the issue of hawker licences to a limited extent. About 212 fixed-pitch newspaper hawker licences have been issued. The issue of other classes of licences will depend on the availability of viable and publicly acceptable sites. However, the council has a firm policy of not issuing any new hawker licences to itinerant hawkers, whose trading activities are causing serious obstruction to pedestrians and vehicular traffic in highly built-up urban areas.

Through the deployment of the General Duties Teams, which have an establishment of 1900, the Urban Services Department enforces hawker legislation and maintains control of illegal hawker activities. During the year, there were 90 000 court convictions on hawker offences.

The Regional Council is responsible for the management of hawkers within its region. To contain problems associated with street trading, the council has a firm policy of not issuing new hawker licences and of gradually resiting licensed hawkers off-street. However, fixed-pitch hawker licences for the sale of newspapers are still issued subject to availability of suitable sites. In 1991, there were 2 058 licensed hawkers, a reduction of 555 compared with 1990. Most of these former hawkers have been resited into new markets.

Through the deployment of general duties teams, the Regional Services Department maintains control over illegal hawking. As new towns develop and the population in the council area continues to increase, hawker blackspots are growing in number. There were an estimated 1 640 unlicensed hawkers at the end of the year. After a review on the work of the general duties teams, the department is restructuring the teams to strengthen their capability to make arrests and to form special squads to reinforce district-based operations. In 1991, there were 18 445 court convictions against hawking offences in the Regional Council area.

Abattoirs

There are two abattoirs in the urban areas - one at Kennedy Town on Hong Kong Island and the other at Cheung Sha Wan in Kowloon.

Following its decision to privatise the slaughtering services of the two abattoirs in two phases, the Urban Council leased out Kennedy Town Abattoir to a licensed private operator in November 1990, with meat inspection service remaining a council respon- sibility. The second phase will involve the closure of Cheung Sha Wan Abattoir upon the

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