The Housing Authority should install front-door metal gates for all future public housing flats and subsidise the installation costs if necessary, one of its committee members has said.
Members of the subsidised housing committee agreed yesterday that flats at future public housing estates should have metal gates.
Under cost-saving measures introduced in 2003, the authority stopped providing front-door metal gates.
Committee member Fred Li Wah-ming, of the Democratic Party, said yesterday that gates were a basic security measure that should be provided. He also argued that it was not enough to have only one security guard for a building of 600 to 800 flats.
It would cost the housing department about HK$1.5 million to install gates for about 800 flats, he said.
According to a Democratic Party survey conducted early this month, more than 90 per cent of 530 public housing households with no front-door gates had installed gates at their own expense.