Don't pave paradise

The Mui Wo waterfront should be one of the most charming seaside spots in Asia. But it isn't. A total lack of aesthetic planning has ruined what should be a glorious marriage of man and nature.

The waterfront alongside the ferry pier is a drab and brutal statement in concrete. The vision across the bay is marred by an unsightly sprawl of concrete dumps, cargo areas and other infrastructure. This spectre is a victory for unimaginative town planning, executed with a breathtaking lack of elegance and style.

Now we hear of plans to turn the centuries-old port and surrounding villages into a 'leisure historic rural town'. The proposals to rebuild the waterfront come under the Planning Department.

Hearing this, I scurried over to the Man Mo Temple at the lovely village of Pak Ngan Heung, in the hills above Mui Wo. I lit incense and asked the village deities to protect the town from the planners. It's my opinion that the Planning Department couldn't plan a picnic at a New Territories roadside barbecue pit. This view is shared by many Lantau residents.

Creating a relaxed and pleasing atmosphere on this site screams for imagination, flair and brilliance of design. A team of talented landscape and architectural designers should be appointed and given a free hand to create something vibrant and exciting. Trees, shrubs and natural beauty should be the waterfront theme with comfortable street furniture and discrete lighting. Some of the proposals made by government officials are good. A cycle track linking the ferry hub with Pui O and the southern beaches of Lantau is sensible and desirable; sportsmen have been calling for this for years.

But I am puzzled by proposals for a heritage trail going from the pier to the old silver mine cave and the spectacular waterfall. Don't the officials who announced this plan realise such a trail already exists? All it needs is signs pointing the way. Also puzzling is the timing. Why now? And why isn't work due to start for another four years? Even by the customary slothful pace of government's snail-like planning, this seems like dawdling.

Gavin Coates, an artist and member of the Living Islands Movement - which seeks to protect Lantau from being destroyed by development - drew up a plan two years ago to revamp the waterfront. 'I presented this to the rural committee, which was very impressed,' Mr Coates said. 'Some of our ideas have been adopted. This is good news. They couldn't make [the waterfront] any worse if they tried.'

I would like to see the Hong Kong Tourism Board involved in this initiative, and they should not restrict themselves to Mui Wo. Down the coast, Pui O deserves some attention. There's another gem ruined.

At Pui O beach last summer, I winced with horror as a bellowing electronic message echoed over the sands, screeching about safety. The lifeguards' station looks like a guardhouse in a concentration camp. Bureaucratic planning has mangled a once beautiful beach.

Local Mui Wo history should be stressed in the planning. The Southern Song dynasty gasped its last breath here in the 1270s, before the fury of the Mongols.

With the advent of the spectacular Ngong Ping 360 cable car, Mui Wo is a logical stop for lunch, a beer and a stroll for tourists out on a day trip to Lantau.

Just keep ham-fisted officialdom away from the town planning.

Kevin Sinclair is a Hong Kong reporter who lives in the New Territories