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Why you can trust SCMP
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I am in agony. So are the thousands of others who live or work in the vicinity of the old Victoria Prison/Central Police Station complex. What was once a serene oasis of historic low-rise buildings where birds nestled on tiled roofs is now an ugly construction site.

A piledriver hulks like a sullen soldier awaiting orders to pound away. Demolition machines have already done their dirty work, leaving mountains of rubble where some of the old prison buildings once stood. The piercing rat-a-tat of jackhammers and the vanished rooftops have driven away many of the birds.

Who asked for all this? Not the people, and certainly not the thousands who live and work in the area. Only the pompous policymakers of the Hong Kong Jockey Club wanted it. The government gave them the heritage site to preserve for the people. But just like the government bureaucrats, these Jockey Club know-alls felt they knew better than the people what the people wanted. They decided the best way to preserve a heritage site is to destroy part of it.

First, they came up with the insanity of demolishing a large chunk of the complex for a soaring glass building with a viewing deck. A viewing deck to view what? Central's high-rise jungle has already created a concrete wall around the site. Critics shot down the glass-tower folly.

Fierce opposition from area residents, preservationists and the general public finally forced them to limit their destruction of the site to three buildings of the least heritage value. New buildings of similar height will replace them.

But why destroy at all? So what if some of the buildings are less historical? They are still part of a historic complex of buildings. What other city destroys part of a heritage site, even entire buildings except for the fa?ade, in the name of preservation? Our bureaucrats do it all the time.

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