Cyberport site another cost to environment
I have followed with interest recent debate in your newspaper regarding the proposed siting of a cyberport at Telegraph Bay. I wonder why Telegraph Bay has been chosen as the preferred site when there are far more appropriate locations available as demonstrated by several correspondents. Where is the logic in siting an industrial development in the heart of a residential area? Surely the plan to bring Route 7 round the Pokfulam coastline will be enough to destroy the peace and tranquility, why bother spending billions of dollars to take the destruction a stage further? Take a stroll on the reclamation at Telegraph Bay any day of the week and listen to the birdsong and other sounds of nature. Take a stroll any weekend and you'll find people flying kites, people fishing, people walking their dogs (without fear of them eating poisoned food), children enjoying the thrill of clambering over a rocky (albeit man-made) beach and all manner of others quite simply enjoying the sea air and open countryside.
Telegraph Bay should never have been reclaimed in the first place but now that it has lain unused for so many years it has become home to many forms of wildlife. I guess we don't really care what happens to them - we must develop for development's sake - at least that's how it appears. It also appears that we should attempt to cause as much disruption to as many forms of life as possible.
The reason given for the Government's hasty decision (stiff competition in the region) makes it appear rather like me at the hands of an unscrupulous estate agent. 'If you want this apartment you must make an offer and given me deposit cheque now as someone else has already offered more than you.' How pathetic. I also question the headline 'Richard Li won't make a quick dollar on hi-tech project' (South China Morning Post, March 18). Please Financial Secretary, do not insult the intelligence of the public. There is only one reason Mr Li is involved in this project and that is to make money.
I constantly hear the cry 'What can we do to improve the sagging economy, how can we get Hong Kong back on an even keel?' My advice would be to improve that which we already have, before going off scatter-gun spending billions on hair-brained, half-baked schemes. We could improve our medical system, we could give remote villagers a mains water supply, we could provide more old folks homes, we could build more schools, we could do something positive about the dreadful pollution, we could build new prisons and alleviate the overcrowding (I forgot, we need a Disneyland instead of a new prison). We could also completely reclaim the Lamma Channel and build all the way from Telegraph Bay to Lamma. Alas, I fear the latter would probably be a more attractive proposition to Government than spending money improving Hong Kong's many attractive features.
What has gone wrong with Hong Kong? We are hell-bent on destroying it, that's what's gone wrong. Hell-bent on destroying what it was and what it could be. I say take the cyberport and put it in any of the under-utilised industrial areas of Aberdeen, Tuen Mun, Tsuen Wan or Tai Po. Do not, please, destroy yet another part of Hong Kong's green and pleasant land.
N.P. BLACK Pokfulam
