Letters | Hong Kong signboards left hanging on safety and validation issues
- There has been poor public response to the signboard validation scheme, and the process of identifying dangerous or unauthorised signboards has been found wanting
Since the launch of the validation scheme in September 2013, up to April 2018, only 662 applications had been received. Of these, only 314 cases were successfully validated. The other applications had either been rejected or withdrawn. I predict the typical reply from the department to the low response would be that it will devote more resources to publicising the scheme.
While poor performance from staff responsible for publicity work may be a reason for the low response, I believe there are others. As there is no guarantee that every application will be eventually validated, unsuccessful cases would provide an audit trail for the Buildings Department to take follow-up enforcement action. Taking part in the scheme would therefore appear to be unwise for signboard owners. The department should review the effectiveness of the scheme and its publicity work. We won’t accept any further wastage of public money.
Regarding the second issue, although in-house staff and consultants appointed by the department conducted regular surveys to identify dangerous or unauthorised signboards, the Audit Commission noted that the number of targeted signboards identified by department in-house staff had decreased from 272 in 2015 to 60 in 2017.