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The Government has compiled a complete catalogue of sizeable man-made slopes in Hong Kong and every Government slope in the catalogue is assigned to a particular department to take care of its maintenance, the Acting Head of the Geotechnical Engineering Office (GEO) of the Civil Engineering Department, Mr John Massey, announced at a press conference today (Friday).
There are some 54,000 sizeable man-made slopes in the catalogue, of which 37,000 are Government slopes and 17,000 private.
In 1996, the Government commenced a consultancy study to systematically identify the maintenance responsibility (SIMAR) of each and every man-made slope in the catalogue maintained by the GEO.
According to Mr Massey, the allocation of slope maintenance responsibility to departments is governed by the "owner maintains" principle and the "beneficiary maintains" principle (the latter being in the sense that the slopes have been formed to provide space for or to support the departments' facilities).
Maintenance responsibility for the 37,000 Government slopes has now been allocated to the seven departments: Agriculture & Fisheries Department (1,000), Architectural Services Department (6,000), Drainage Services Department (600), Highways Department (8,700), Housing Department (1,600), Lands Department (13,600), Water Supplies Department (5,500).
"Through the experience gained during the SIMAR study, the policy guidelines for allocating slope maintenance responsibility have been reviewed to remove grey areas. A new set of guidelines has been issued to clearly demarcate departmental responsibility towards slope maintenance and slope upgrading," Mr Massey said.
The Lands Department, in all land alienations, will ensure that the grantees or allocatees are effectively held responsible for maintaining the adjoining slopes according to the "owner maintains" and "beneficiary maintains" principles.
He noted that additional manpower and funding would be made available for the slope maintenance departments.
Since 1995, a total of 282 additional posts have been provided to various departments for various responsibilities on maintenance of slopes assigned to them under the SIMAR study.
Currently, some $300 to 400 million is spent on slope maintenance a year and the expenditure will increase as departments implement their maintenance programmes in full force upon receiving all the slopes assigned from the SIMAR study.
Also, provision for the Landslip Preventive Measures (LPM) Programme has increased eight-fold from $107 million in 1994-95 to $908 million in 1999-2000.
The total capital expenditure on the programme in the six years starting from 1994-95 amounts to over $3 billion.
Meanwhile, the GEO will continue to assist the maintenance departments by setting standards, providing technical advice and dealing with difficult slopes as well as carrying out audits on departments' maintenance works to ensure standard and quality.
It will also continue to implement the LPM Programme which started in April 1995, to be completed by March 2000, when 3,500 Government slopes will have been have been dealt by various Government departments.
There are plans to deal with another 6,500 Government slopes by 2010.
This means that, on average, about two slopes will be dealt with everyday.
On the SIMAR register, Mr Massey said the Lands Department was finalising the database for public access by this December and would update it when new slopes are formed or when existing slopes are affected by land transactions.
As regards private slopes, the GEO will continue to conduct "safety screening" and require owners to rectify their unstable slopes.
According to Mr Massey, the newly set-up Community Advisory Team in the GEO will also actively contact owners' incorporations and management companies to give procedural and technical assistance.
"We will carry out continuous public education and publicity campaigns to impress upon private owners their responsibility for maintaining their slopes," he said.
Ends/ Friday, September 3, 1999
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