If you want to see what a combination of incompetent government and the free rein given to property developers can do to Hong Kong's iconic tourist sites, take a trip to Repulse Bay beach. It is a disgrace.
Not the beach itself, which is fine, or even the quality of the water, which has improved. This is the best known of all Hong Kong's beaches, celebrated in all the tourist literature for its size, shape and backdrop of mountains and high-rise apartments - and supposedly for its restaurant and leisure facilities.
But what do you find at ground level, on Beach Road? Not a single eating place, or other venue where visitors can enjoy the view and a drink, or meal.
Along the southern one-third of the beach, stretching for some 200 metres, is a great scar in the beachside land: rusting girders backed by a high concrete wall, emblazoned with the name of the Emperor Group developers. Adjacent to the concrete wall sits a line of tourist buses, fumes belching, air conditioners whirring as they wait for the return of the tourists. They can get to the beach only by walking along the concrete wall to the Buddhist temple at the far end.
This great scar and the hideous concrete wall have been there for some six years. Emperor knocked down the low-rise collection of little restaurants, bars and boutiques known as the Lido which used to occupy the site. But it has failed to build the massive, five-storey 'multifunctional leisure arcade' and shopping complex that an amazingly indulgent government gave it permission to put up.
This development was supposed to have been finished by 2003. But the work has, in fact, barely begun. The Emperor website says it will be finished in 2008, but there is no particular reason to believe the company now, more than before. Meanwhile, it is clear that the government made no time stipulation when it gave permission for this big complex. One has to wonder why a developer is allowed to despoil a major tourist site without a squeak from the government or the publicly funded tourist-promotion bodies.
This is especially curious since, as far back as April 2001, Howard Young, the tourism representative in the Legislative Council, asked about the 'very unsightly' works along Beach Road and the lack of facilities to park tourist buses. What measures was the government taking to improve the streetscape?