I refer to your editorial ("Better access to sports venues", September 24) which questioned the extent to which the Home Affairs Bureau has responded to the recommendations made by the Ombudsman in his direct investigation of the implementation of the policy on private recreational leases.
As has been widely reported elsewhere in the press, the bureau has already anticipated the Ombudsman's recommendations by improving publicity on the availability of sports facilities at private sports clubs to outside organisations and by putting in place mechanisms to increase the monitoring of the extent to which clubs make their facilities available to schools, social welfare and sports organisations.
While we will require sports clubs to open up their facilities to outside users for a minimum of 50 hours per month, we will also further request private recreational lease holders to open their facilities to a larger extent according to their circumstances.
Such requirements have been made clear to all leaseholders, some of whom have already made their facilities available to non-members for far more than the minimum hours required.
Having stepped up our monitoring of the use of sports facilities at private sports clubs by outside organisations, we will keep the situation under review, with the aim of ensuring that non-members of these clubs have a reasonable degree of access to the facilities in question.
Petty Lai, principal assistant secretary for home affairs