Precious resource wasted: Vacant Hong Kong schools a 'breach of duty' by government as properties left to rot
Around 80 per cent of the 234 vacant schools in the past decade were primary schools
Land-strapped Hong Kong is sitting on hectares of unused land in the shape of more than 100 empty and abandoned schools scattered across the territory.
The potentially precious yet idle land bank - revealed in a damning report released by the Director of Audit yesterday - has sparked criticism of the government.
Democratic Party chief executive Lam Cheuk-ting, an advocate of redeveloping vacant school sites, described the situation as "a waste of precious public resources".
"This is an obvious serious breach of duty on the government's part. They always say Hong Kong has a shortage of land … yet what they are doing is wasting previous public resources," said Lam, who has made previous calls on the government to reopen new schools to ease the squeeze on school places.
As the city faces a squeeze both on land available for much needed housing and an annual clamour for primary school places, it emerged that nearly half of the 200 school premises vacated in recent years sit empty and decaying with no plan in place for redevelopment.