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SCMP Reporter

WHEN the New Towns were being planned back in the early 1970s, landscape artists, architects, sociologists and experts from many disciplines were involved.

 The cities rising out of the paddy fields and fishponds were to be holistic developments, total environments with everything included, from schools and restaurants to factories and cinemas, playing fields and old folks' homes.

 Someone forgot the car parks.

 Three decades ago, they were easy to overlook. Parking? Why, just perch your car on the footpath under the shady gum trees in the middle of Sha Tin. Try that today: there is a 25-storey housing estate on the site.

 Car parks were easy to forget. Few people had cars. In 1971, there were 665,700 people in the New Territories and 143,687 vehicles in all Hong Kong. Today, the former rural region has a population of well over three million and there are probably more BMWs in Sheung Shui than there are in Stuttgart.

 This omission of public car parks has led to congestion, confusion and daily confrontation between police and motorists. The coppers have to keep roads cleared and traffic moving. Citizens who are otherwise law abiding get enraged when they pause to buy a paper in Luen Wo Hui and a traffic policeman lunges 10 times faster than a striking cobra.

 The beneficiaries of this are people with a bit of open ground close to where a town has arisen. Forget planting rice, uncle. Start a car park.

 Take Tai Po. As far as I know - and believe me, I have looked - there are no high-rise public car park buildings in Tai Po. In 1978, you did not need them. There were plenty of places to park. Now, the old market town sits in the middle of a ring of high density apartments and housing blocks.

 Three minutes from the busy main shopping street, there is a cul de sac that contains two open air car parks. Both are totally unsatisfactory in terms of price (too expensive) and service (invariably surly).

 One of them is run by the firm of Wilson Parking, which seems like a giant octopus whose tentacles ensnare car parks throughout the Pacific. Among the many they run in Hong Kong is this establishment over 7,500 square metres named the Plover Cove Open Air Car Park. They get the land from the Government on a quarterly tenure.

 I have to admit a certain unhappy history with this establishment. About five years ago, I parked there briefly while I went into Tai Po to buy some fishing nets. When I came back, the left-hand side of my car, parked within four metres of the watchman's plastic cubicle, was stoved in. Damage was extensive. Noise must have been considerable.

 The old man - all staff I had seen in this place could have drawn an old-age pension when Tung Chee-hwa wore short pants - shrugged his shoulders. See no crash, hear no crash. After weeks of furious exchanges of faxes with Wilson Parking management, they answered: Pay no cash. They refused all responsibility although this happened in mid-afternoon on the property they ran and for which I was paying to park.

 So the other week, having to go to Tai Po about 6pm, I tried to find alternative car parking. No luck. Tai Po still has meters, but these are usually engaged by the street-side car repair industry. Bad luck, Mr Public.

 Finally, I ventured again to the dead-end street with the Plover Cove Car Park.

 What a joke. First, you bump over potholes filled with rainwater into this chaotic yard, where cars and trucks are parked in a wayward manner. Finally, you squeeze into a spot and emerge into a puddle of muddy water. Some vile mutt with a dripping nostril and patches of moulting fur snarls at you. As you pick your way carefully out of the car park, the elderly attendant demands your keys and thumps a sign asking you to surrender them to him.

 No way!  What is going on? Why should you surrender your keys to a car park attendant? There was a short exchange of views and, declining to hand over the keys to an establishment with a record of not accepting responsibility for vehicles in its care, I drove off.

 God smiled. By a miracle, I found an empty space at a parking meter, despite gestures from a street garage that it was their private property. Such are the delights of motoring in the wide open spaces.

 Sitting in the Soho Bar musing over a shandy about the injustices of life, I pondered the wisdom of giving your car keys to some unknown person. Now I am sure the aged gentleman at Wilson Parking is as honest as the chairman of the Hongkong Bank. But the dangers are obvious: surrender your keys and how can you be sure valuables are safe? What if some strong young hoodlum demands the keys of all cars in the park from the aged attendant, then goes through the vehicles? Will Wilson Parking give an unequivocal guarantee of compensation in such cases? You are joking, pang yau.

 The general manager for Wilson's operations, Christopher Ng, has answers for everything, of course. The surface is rough because the park is used by trucks and it has been raining. Dogs are not permitted. (I went back a week later and two mongrels were roaming under the eyes of staff.) It was 'common' for car parks to ask people to leave keys.

 Oh, yes? Oh, no, said police crime prevention experts who advised that under no circumstances should you give up your keys. A detective friend went on to explain that if your bundle of keys fell into the wrong hands and a thief knew what car they belonged to, it was the easiest thing in the world to check the registration, get your name and home address, then use copies of the keys to break into your home.

 Leave the keys? Never, say the police.

 The problem gets back to government policy. Highways and transport departments have shrugged off their duties on to private companies, like Wilson, and refuse to accept any responsibility.

 It is a duplicitous and lazy solution to a basic planning bungle.



Parking a problem on Mr Public's doorstep