Drug rehabilitation school still no closer to new home after four years

A remote drug rehabilitation school on Lantau Island is still no closer to finding a new home, four years after Mui Wo residents shot down its application for a vacant site in the town.

As pupils at Christian Zheng Sheng College endure cold showers in the winter and a crumbling campus, it seems the government may have no intention of granting it the site.

The empty site in Mui Wo was used by the New Territories Heung Yee Kuk Southern District Secondary School until 2007, when it was shut down because it didn't have enough pupils.

Lawmakers say government departments are passing the buck, not wanting to be involved with what would be an unpopular decision to allocate the campus to the school for drug addicts.

The campus is located in the town of Mui Wo and is ready for a new school to move in. It was seen as an ideal new location for the dilapidated Zheng Sheng, which currently occupies a ramshackle site at the southwestern end of the Chi Ma Wan peninsula - and is accessible only by a long hike or sampan ride.

But when the Home Affairs Department in 2009 conducted a consultation on the possibility of granting the site to Zheng Sheng, it was met with vehement opposition from protesting locals.

Their message was "local school for local kids" - and it was effective, with the government scrapping the consultation.