Allowing the Central harbour reclamation project to go ahead in its present form would mean defeat for efforts to scale back the controversial Wan Chai project, a court heard yesterday.
The claim came as the Society for the Protection of the Harbour completed submissions in its legal challenge against harbour reclamation.
Mr Justice Michael Hartmann has reserved his decision on the latest judicial review centred around the Central Reclamation Phase III project.
Yesterday, society counsel Mok Yeuk-chi told Mr Justice Hartmann that the latest challenge was the lynchpin for further anti-reclamation moves.
'If your lordship allows the Central project to go ahead and finds in favour of the government, it will deliver a fait accompli for Wan Chai to go ahead,' he said.
The society wants to force the Executive Council to send the Central reclamation plan back to the Town Planning Board to see if it complies with new legal tests laid down by the Court of Final Appeal in December.
That ruling established the principle of 'over-riding public need' for all reclamation projects.