Last night's RAS talk was by Mrs Carrie Lam, Secretary for Development. She talked to us about Hong Kong's 'tangible heritage', which falls under her Development Bureau's responsibility. I guess I was expecting a fair amount of government blather, but she gave a straightforward talk, and I left feeling better about the chances of Heritage preservation in Hong Kong.
(Tangible Heritage - permanent things you can touch, like old buildings, trees, etc. Intangible Heritage - eg Chinese opera, Chinese tea.)
Some of the points I noted;
Previously heritage came under Culture, under Home Affairs. So if a heritage problem arose, they had to go begging to the other departments that handled buildings, land, etc. When the Development Bureau was formed in 1 July 2007 (the date she was appointed the head of that bureau), it has control of all the land, building,etc PLUS the responsibility for tangible heritage.
Now a friend who was at the talk complained this is damaging for heritage. That by placing two conflicting interests in one bureau, it's impossible to take the impartial view. Mrs Lam explained the benefits, which sounded reasonable to me. First, it's now clear the buck stops with her. No longer can the heritage people say their hands are tied due to lack of cooperation from the other departments. Second she says it makes trade-offs easier to arrange. So if an owner of an important building is interested in offering it for preservation, there may be ways to entice them to do that. Maybe offering another similar size plot, or by relaxing conditions on the smaller plot that remains if the building is preserved. These approaches have already been used with King Yin Lei and Jessville.
At one point she asked if we subscribe to their newsletter about heritage. They have one? It's not easy to find it on the government's heritage website, but eventually I tracked it down - if you want to subscribe, they ask you to send an email to wbenq@devb.gov.hk.
She also mentioned the Commissioner for Heritage and his office several times. He is Mr Jack Chan, and was also present at the talk. Thinking back to the fiasco when the City Boundary stone on Magazine Gap road was destroyed, I asked him where is the most effective point to contact the government if a member of the public sees a piece of heritage being damaged. He said his office is the go-to point for anything concerning tangible heritage, so we'll keep that in mind.
The increased enthusiasm for keeping old buildings alive has raised one problem - a limited number of people skilled in this type of work. She'd been talking to Hip Hing, the construction company working on renovating the old Victoria Barracks Magazine building. She'd been told there's a pool of around 100 workers, who'd moved to this project from the Marine Police HQ redevelopment. So if they want to have multiple projects underway, they'll need more trained workers.
And finally, she'd recently met with the Chairman of the UK's National Trust, and gave us one quote from him that she said resounded with her: "We all need a fixed point to remind us of our past".