We often hear of issues that defy resolution because authority is divided - and diluted - between two or more government departments. The most notorious example of this is the illegal dumping that scars the New Territories landscape.
You wouldn't expect such bureaucratic inertia to form an obstacle to a cultural and tourist project that has cost the public purse nearly HK$1 million. But that is what has happened to a pottery museum in Tai Po that is supposed to be a highlight of an archaeological heritage trail linking kilns scattered through the hills of the area.
Unless a stand-off with local villagers is overcome, it will remain a white elephant.
The museum, which traces the history of the 600-year-old industry in Wun Yiu village, stands in a converted school renovated three years ago. A one-storey display centre of 1,400 sq ft is ready for visitors, with a location model of the local landscape, information boards, furniture selected to showcase porcelain, video facilities, spotlights and so on.
The Antiquities and Monuments Office says villagers have opposed opening the museum without road widening and the construction of a car park and toilets, demands difficult to meet because of space constraints. But Ma Ka-shun, whose clan was one of two that started porcelain production with wood-fired kilns in the 1430s during the Ming dynasty, and who helped with excavation of relics, claims the office has not done its best to solve the problems.
These seem rooted in a proposed change of land use and compensation for the loss of an area zoned for small houses where Wun Yiu stands. Villagers have submitted five applications to build small houses on a site covering relics.