SOME QUESTIONS NEED to be asked again and again until they get an answer. Here is one that has gone too long without an answer and I have reasons for asking it once again. Who owns the Lok Ma Chau Loop?
This 100-hectare piece of land on the border, which was incorporated into Hong Kong territory by a straightening of the Shenzhen River, is home at the moment to reeds, birds and at least a million cubic metres of contaminated mud that cannot be excavated without breaching international conventions.
Aside from the matter of this mud, studies have found it unsuitable for development because the water table in the area could be seriously affected, because development would have a serious impact on the nature reserve just down the river and because it is far from water, road and sewer connections. Putting these in would be extremely costly.
There are other telling counts against proposals to turn it into an industrial park-cum-exhibition centre where workers from across the border could be employed. For one, this would lead to further unemployment among Hong Kong industrial workers who are barely holding on to their jobs at present.
It would also be far from our population centres and exacerbate what is already a surfeit in Hong Kong of hi-tech parks and exhibition centres when our government's professed aim is to centralise these through initiatives such as Science Park and Cyberport, both of which have trouble as things are in finding enough suitable tenants for their professed purposes.
There should thus be no surprise that the government's own report on a public consultation in January stated: 'Non-development of the Lok Ma Chau Loop was the mainstream of views expressed at the meeting.' Unanimity of the views expressed at the meeting would actually be a more accurate description.