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The Jockey Club looks set to keep 44,000  square metres of government land in Sha Tin after the equestrian events for the Beijing Olympics.

But a  lawmaker said this deprived the  public of the benefit of using the facilities. In a paper to the Legislative Council's home affairs panel, the government said it intended to let the  club keep a site on the northwest side of the  Sports Institute next  to Sha Tin racecourse which  consists of former golf practice facilities and two football pitches.

The site has been proposed as home for the Games'  stables and training facilities. The  club is set to spend HK$800 million  hosting the event.

It also needs the site as part of a plan to replace  stable blocks that have been damaged because of 'settlement' problems. The  club's facilities  were built on reclaimed land 30 years ago.

The Home Affairs Bureau had expressed its intention to let the club claim the extra land after the event 'to meet needs of the Sha Tin racecourse, to provide a legacy value to co-hosting an Olympic event and to avoid wastage, which would be the case if these brand new facilities were to be demolished',  the government paper said.

The paper also said that the equestrian facilities would be welcomed by the international sports community.

It said key stakeholders, including the Sports Institute's  board and national sports associations, had  no objection to the plan.

But panel member Albert Chan Wai-yip  said the plan was a waste of resources.

'If you spend so much and  Hongkongers don't get to use it, what's the point?' he said. 'The whole exercise has not been for the benefit of Hong Kong but for the glory of a few officials for staging the event.'

The Sports Institute  has been temporarily relocated to Ma On Shan's YMCA's Wu Kwai Sha Youth Village  since January. The site and facilities will be converted by the Jockey Club for the Olympics  and the institute can move back to its Fo Tan site after reinstatement work is completed at the end of  next year.



Jockey Club to keep Games land