Threat of truck blockade at estate
Truck-driving villagers may use their vehicles to block the entrance to Fairview Park if the Yuen Long estate's management goes ahead with plans to install a gate to keep them off a private road.
Wong Wai-keung, of neighbouring Tai Sang Wai village, threatened the blockade yesterday after the estate management said it may erect the gate on or before Sunday to keep trucks off Fairview Park Boulevard.
It was the latest twist in a long-running row that saw 20 elderly villagers protest at the estate's main gate on Tuesday after the management office put up signs in Tai Sang Wai warning truckers to stay away from the boulevard.
Mr Wong said the villagers - most of them truck drivers - might leave their vehicles outside the gate if their shortest route home was blocked.
San Tin Rural committee chairman Man Fu-wan, who met both parties and the Yuen Long district officer on Tuesday, said the government had proposed to pay the road's maintenance costs in return for the estate opening up the road.
But Fairview general manager Albert Lam Kwok-fai said yesterday they would believe that when they saw it. 'It would not be the first time the government has tricked us.'
Estate managers and truck drivers have been at loggerheads over use of the road for decades, and especially since a cycling schoolboy was killed by a truck more than two years ago.
