Hong Kong government puts property developers’ desires ahead of people’s health – again
The determination to concrete over Wan Chai Sports Ground demonstrates once more that the powers that be couldn’t care less about citizens’ health and fitness if there is a fast buck to be made
It’s customary in this space to use the Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon as an annual reminder to readers of the Hong Kong government’s contempt for sport.
Next Sunday, 74,000 people will get up in the small hours to make the pre-dawn starts because the government cannot contemplate inconveniencing people for a few hours once a year by closing roads for a decent amount of time.
But that HK$20 billion over five years seems to include the mammoth Kai Tak Sports Park among various community basketball hoops, five-a-side courts, heating for swimming pools and the like – welcome, of course, but not game-changing.
In the next breath CY promised “comprehensive redevelopment” of Wan Chai Sports Ground. “Apart from convention and exhibition venues, the development proposal will comprise trendy and novel recreation and sports facilities ...”
A paragraph carefully crafted to distract people from its content by the horrendous phrase “trendy and novel” coming from CY’s lips.
A translation: “After more than a decade of being badgered by our property-developing and hotel-owning cronies about that prime harbourfront land going to waste, we are finally going to concrete over it.
“We might require whichever one of our chums gets the contract to include a skateboarding half-pipe or rock-climbing wall as some sort of sop to the ‘sports community’, whatever that is.”
Seizing the space to expand the Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC) has been a government aim for at least a decade, officials no doubt furious at the squandered potential for money-making as their chauffeurs drive them past the ground every day on the way to government HQ.
The redevelopment will provide “really up and coming, really a niche kind of sport activities, providing a more diversified portfolio for our citizens in Hong Kong to really enjoy,” said secretary for commerce and economic development Gregory So Kam-leung.
Yeah, I have far too much of my portfolio in football at the moment and have been looking to rebalance my holdings by diversifying into emerging markets such as kabbadi.
These are the arguments and numbers that matter to the government – forget the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, who will have been inspired to make healthy living a lifestyle choice from school sports days at the ground.
What proportion of the tens of thousands running the marathon next Sunday will have got their first taste of sport at the venue? As far as the powers that be are concerned, who cares?