Transcript of remarks by SEN
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Reporter: Secretary, will it be more effective to bring in certain legislation? Because right now we only have the Charter on External Lighting, and that does not give any penalty for those who do not put the lights down after 10pm. And also the other topic on noise pollution, in the Mong Kok pedestrian zone, the noise pollution is quite serious as well, and the stores have to put on noise barriers to stop the noise from going in. Is that situation ideal? What can the Government do about it?
Secretary for the Environment: Firstly, about the external lighting nuisance, we think that the major concern is about the disturbance of the lighting on people's sleeping quality. So we had done a kind of engagement with the stakeholders in the last few years. The response was mixed. Whether we should step up mandatory control was not widely supported at the time. That is why we tried different means, including the Guidelines (Guidelines on Industry Best Practices for External Lighting Installations) and the Charter (Charter on External Lighting) to mitigate most of the issues. When there were complaints, colleagues would follow up. Most of the concerned companies or organisations did improve the situation, so that there could be less nuisance to the people. So to some extent, the current measures could offer certain improvement. But I said earlier that we are monitoring the situation, and we will review what should be further followed up in the coming years. We would like to have a wider community consensus if we are going to consider the mandatory means. Regarding the nuisance issue, I think in some of the areas in Hong Kong with mixed use, there will be certain concerns about the said noise concern. My colleagues are following up the cases one by one, and see how we can have a balance between these two. Thank you.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Saturday, October 28, 2017
Issued at HKT 16:40
Issued at HKT 16:40
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