The MTR Corporation has denied it plans to extend the controversial cross-border express rail link, after an independent lobby group obtained documents which show lines to Lo Wu and Hong Kong Island.
The Professional Commons revealed the two MTR Corp documents yesterday, and said they raised concerns about transparency in the rail planning process. But the government and the MTR denied there were any plans to extend the line.
The lobby group's chairman, Albert Lai Kwong-tak, said: 'There should be nothing secretive about rail planning. All rail works, present and future, have been laid out in a railway development strategy released by the government in the past decade. But we can't find these two extensions in these studies, nor did we hear officials mention this when they applied for funding from the Legislative Council [for the cross-border link]. This is unusual.'
Funding for the HK$66.9 billion high-speed railway from West Kowloon to Shenzhen, now under construction, was approved by Legco in January 2010 despite protests over its cost. There were further protests when a village in Yuen Long was razed to make way for the link.
One of the documents shown yesterday was an October 2008 PowerPoint presentation entitled 'railway development to serve Greater Pearl River Delta Region', prepared by MTR planning manager Albert Yuen.
It shows a map of the railway terminus at West Kowloon, with a link to Hong Kong Island through a new cross-harbour tunnel indicated in dotted lines. The group suspects the extension would lead to Central or Sheung Wan.