THE Country Parks Board has agreed to let China Light and Power run new power-transmission lines through country parkland.
This follows the submission by China Light of an adapted cable alignment plan to minimise the impact on sensitive areas.
China Light re-drafted the alignment after the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) complained that original proposals did not take into consideration ecological impacts, only the landscape.
A consultant was appointed by the power company to study these impacts, using, in part, a new ecological map drawn up by the WWF.
''Obviously, it would have been better if they had done it earlier and it would have speeded up the project. But it's good and encouraging that China Light did this,'' said WWF executive director David Melville.
The power lines will originate from the mammoth 6,000-megawatt electricity station - one of the biggest in the world - which is to be built at Black Point by 1996.
In announcing its decision yesterday, the Country Parks Board noted that the visual impact in country parks would not be serious and that the alignment had changed to avoid two sites of special scientific interest at Ho Chung and Ng Tung Chai.