I refer to Patrick Pang's letter headlined, 'Long wait', concerning problems he experienced at Lo Wu Control Point (Sunday Morning Post, December 14).
Mr Pang stated that on November 30 when he made use of the help-through counter at Lo Wu, the line was long and mixed with several young people and that he had to wait for 30 minutes to get through.
Help-through counters at Lo Wu Control Points are designed for use by passengers who are in need of help-through facilities. These are normally elderly or disabled passengers, but may sometimes include passengers travelling with infants or passengers who are incapacitated from queueing up due to sickness. When passengers who need help-through facilities are escorted by relatives, we would in general practice allow the relatives to pass through the help-through counters.
This is to avoid the needy passengers from having to wait for their escorts after passing through and thus defeating the purpose of the help-through counters.
Therefore, the young people Mr Pang saw mixed in the line might be the escorts and relatives of those passengers in need of help-through facilities.
November 30 was an exceptionally busy Sunday at Lo Wu Control Point. On that day, 126,000 passengers returned from Shenzhen and there were more than the usual number of passengers seeking help-through facilities. This may have accounted for Mr Pang having to wait for 30 minutes to pass through.
