1 in 8 comment cards on hub the same
Even discounting suspicious votes, one - anonymous - design was clear winner
More than 4,000 of the 33,000-plus comment cards members of the public posted to show which of the shortlisted West Kowloon Cultural Project designs they preferred were in identical envelopes and contained similar answers.
The revelation appears to lend substance to shortlisted bidder Henderson Land's questioning of the credibility of public polling on the plans.
The government-commissioned consultation, conducted by Polytechnic University's Public Policy Research Institute, had three components: comment cards from the exhibition of the shortlisted proposals; written submissions and views expressed at forums/meetings; and three telephone polls.
A total of 33,416 comment cards, with answers to 13 questions, were received. Of these, 4,176 were posted using an identical envelope or mailing label and contained similar answers.
The institute's Peter Yuen Pok-man said over 90 per cent of the suspect cards favoured the plans of one of the three bidders - the one which received the strongest public support. The plans' authors were not identified in the consultation, and the government would not say which plan was involved.
Deputy Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands Au King-chi said even after discarding the suspicious comment cards, the plan they overwhelmingly favoured still came out top. She said there were no rules for public consultation exercises barring individuals or organisations from submitting multiple copies of formatted responses.
'One has to understand that it is not like voting in an election, where you need to show your identity cards at the poll stations to collect your ballot papers,' she said.
A spokeswoman for developer Henderson Land said on Sunday that it was aware that some corporations used buses to send some 'related' people to the West Kowloon Cultural District project exhibition halls and that those visitors had also filled out the consultation forms.
Another bidder, Dynamic Star, last night said it would not comment on the suspicious comment cards, calling it a matter between the government and those filling out the cards.
As for the telephone polling, in which 4,553 people were polled, 61 per cent supported building a cultural district on the West Kowloon waterfront, with only 10 per cent against it. More than 75 per cent of the respondents believed the project could enhance Hong Kong's culture and arts development and tourism industry, and 72 per cent felt it could improve employment. However, half were against the now-abandoned single-developer approach.
On the sensitive issue of the canopy, 51 per cent of those polled favoured its construction, with 18 per cent against. Public support for the canopy was in contrast to the fierce opposition to its construction contained in the majority of the 623 written submissions received on the project.
