Road plan bids to appease landlord
IN a move seen as appeasing influential Central landlord Hongkong Land, a Central and Western District Board working group set up to investigate the company's call to re-open Chater Road to traffic on Sundays is considering a proposal to open a now closed section of Des Voeux Road.
The Transport Department has drawn up a proposal to open Des Voeux Road Central from Chater Road to the old Bank of China Building to give Hongkong Land's 360 Central tenants transport access on Sundays and public holidays, according to a working group member. Private transport is at present not allowed in the section.
The plan is now being reviewed by other government departments such as the police and will be presented to the working group's next sitting on April 23.
Attending the meeting will be representatives from a number of government departments, such as Labour, Immigration, Urban Services, as well as Transport and Police, and representatives from the Philippine Consulate, groups representing domestic helpers and Hongkong Land.
While Hongkong Land welcomed the plan to give its tenants easy access, it would still like to have Chater Road reopened, company spokesman Mr Martin Spurrier said.
''They [Hongkong Land] would like to have the road reopened, at the same time there has to be an alternative place found,'' he said.
But the chairman of the 13-member working group, Mr Yuen Bun-keung, said that reopening Chater Road was no longer an option. Instead the group was looking at ways to address the ''problems'' of littering, hawking and gambling.
But the Philippine Consulate's labour attache, Mrs Virginia Son, said these issues should no longer be associated with Chater Road and the estimated 12,000 domestic helpers who gather in the area at any one time on their day off.
''We have spoken to all the Filipina groups in Hongkong telling them not to play cards in Statue Square or sell goods and to clean up the area and they have done this,'' she said.
''We do not think these are problems any more.'' She also revealed that the consulate had been encouraging maids not to gather in Chater Road and Statue Square, but to instead organise indoor events and congregate in catholic centres.
Mrs Son admitted that the plea was in direct response to the furore provoked by Hongkong Land's request to get Chater Road reopened to traffic, claiming the number of domestic helpers gathering in the area was giving it the appearance of a slum and driving away Sunday shoppers.
Another plan set to be put before the Chater Road working group is a proposal from a newly-formed group called Sunday In Central to turn Chater Road into a flea market and donate the profits to charity organisations.
A director of the group, Mr Chan Wing-nga, said he wanted to turn Central into a Covent Garden - ''creating the atmosphere of a lazy Sunday afternoon in Europe''.
In a move to clear the Filipinos from Statue Square, Hongkong Land last year proposed moving the maids to four car parks.
The Central landlord said the maids were giving the area the appearance of a ''slum'' by crowding around their elite retail outlets.
