NLB mobile app now shows expected bus arrival times

Starting today, New Lantao Bus (NLB) is trialing a service that allows passengers to find out the likely arrival time of their bus.

Available through the NLB mobile app, it applies to routes 1R、11、23、34、36、37、37H、37M and 38.

The company does not say when it will extend the service to other routes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To use the service, first download the app (above left) from the Apple Store or Google Play, then go to the main page and select the route and direction.

On the next page, select the bus stop and it will automatically show the estimated arrival times of the next three buses on that route (above right)).

Ombudsman called on to probe ‘criminal’ wetland dumping

Local activists have filed a complaint with the Ombudsman over the failure of the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) to prevent illegal dumping on the Pui O wetland.

A letter to the Ombudsman says the EPD had given the go-ahead for landfill on a site, despite knowing that fly-tipping, a criminal offence, had already taken place.

It says the landowner has ignored the EPD’s demands to cease, yet the department has taken no steps to prevent further destruction or to arrest the landowner, despite “evidence of a criminal offence.”

The Ombudsman complaint follows a visit to the wetland by EPD, CEDD, AFCD and Planning Department on Friday in which they were unable to explain the government’s unwillingness to use its powers to prevent landfilling “on a pristine piece of wetland habitat.”

Under questioning by local residents at the site – farcically adorned with a kitchen sink – an EPD official admitted that if he saw a truck dumping construction waste he would take no action.

The kitchen sink

Hours after the meeting, residents called police after sighting further landfilling and clearance on the site.

The owner has applied for Town Planning Board approval to have the 400 sq metre plot rezoned as agricultural land.

The plot is designated Coastal Protection Area which, despite the name, offers no protection.

In fact under Hong Kong Waste Disposal Ordinance, dumping can take if the EPD “acknowledges” it, although the Coastal Protection Area regulations specifically rule out landfilling.

In the case of this site, the dumping began before the acknowledgement was granted, which is illegal.

Additionally, the EPD’s practice in handing out acknowledgements, which have caused the degradation of other parts of the Pui O wetland, is being tested in a judicial review.

The case has been heard but the judge has not yet handed down a decision.

The Ombudsman complaint argues that the EPD erred in giving the acknowledgement when a judicial review decision is pending.

Ham Tin resident Martin Lerigo (right) with EPD and Planning Department officials

The Sustainable Lantau Blueprint, issued in June, acknowledged the Pui O wetland as a conservation priority, specifically referencing “illegal dumping activities of construction waste” in the village.

It says an inter-departmental working group had been formed to tackle fly-tipping and would “take a pro-active role to strengthen measures against illegal dumping of construction waste.”

The Living Islands Movement has written to Carrie Lam, arguing that the EPD’s role in approving landfill on a wetland “directly contradicts your stated policy intent. ”

It adds:

Rebecca Dykes family sets up charity fund

The family of Rebecca Dykes, a Hong Kong-raised woman murdered in Beirut 10 days ago, has set up a charity fund to support the causes she championed.

“Please give what you can to support the causes my beautiful daughter Rebecca worked so hard for,” her mother, Jane Houng, a Lantau-based writer, posted on Facebook today.

On a crowdfunding site the family said they were seeking to raise £100,000 (HK$1.045m):

This foundation will have the aim of continuing Rebecca’s humanitarian and stabilisation work for refugees and other vulnerable communities, with a particular focus on women’s empowerment and preventing violence against women…

Rebecca was compassionate, caring and committed to humanitarian causes. She worked tirelessly to make the world a kinder, fairer, safer and more stable place.

Most recently, she had undertaken pioneering work in Lebanon, for the UK Department for International Development, to improve the lives of refugees and impoverished Lebanese people, and help these vulnerable communities to become more peaceful and resilient.

Buy lunchtime on Boxing Day the fund had raised £2,660 from 63 donations.

Rebecca, 30, who worked for the UK Department for International Development in the Beirut Embassy, was strangled and her body dumped by the side of the road after night out with friends.

An Uber driver was arrested and has reportedly confessed to her murder.

These beautiful pups would love to go home with you this Christmas

Pets aren’t best viewed as gifts, but if you have a loved one that you know will care for a dog for its whole life, then maybe a puppy can be that last-minute Christmas present.

Or take one home for yourself.

PALS in Mui Wo has these two sets of beautiful siblings who would love to go home with you this Christmas.

These cute guys were found at Ngong Ping.

And these irresistible pups came from a New Territories construction site.

If you’re interested, Jaqui Green and her PALS volunteers will be at the Discovery Bay Plaza from midday until 4:00 p.m tomorrow (Christmas Eve).

Or you contact them on 9197 4371 or email: jaquigreen@gmail.com.

With burglaries up 20%, Lantau police push video surveillance

Burglaries in Lantau are up 20% in the first 11 months of the year, police say, as they promote a video surveillance scheme for local villages.

Lantau District Police Commander Josephine Mak-Lau Wai-mun said the number of criminal cases this year is similar to last year, but burglaries and criminal damage cases have increased from 30 to 49.

Police are now rolling out a scheme called ‘Lantau Eyes’ in which they make use of CCTV owned by villagers to build up an anti-crime network, Apple Daily reports.

Currently nine villages, including Tong Fuk, Lo Wai village in Pui O and Ma Wan San Tsuen in Tung Chung, are taking part in the trial.

CCTV increases the difficulty of making crimes, Lau said. In Sham Shui Po, where she was previously posted, the number of burglaries had fallen by a quarter after introduction of video surveillance.

She said many of Lantau’s 58 villages were in remote locations, while villagers often were not accustomed to locking up at night or when they left their houses.

Mak said the first phase of the scheme would be to make good use of camera already installed by villagers themselves, while police would work with village leaders and rural committees to invest in the equipment.

Said police would have access to the video data only with the consent of the villagers.

Police also would post notices where videos were operating so that member of the public would be aware they were being recorded.

Fan Chi-ping, chairman of the Tung Chung Rural Committee, said it plans to spend $60,000 to $70,000 on video surveillance for its 16 villages.

Across the border, China has deployed AI-equipped 20 million cameras on city streets in the world’s most aggressive video surveillance programme.

Another Cheung Sha luxury development gets green light

A developer has been given the go-ahead to build six luxury residential blocks at Cheung Sha.

According to the Building Services Dept, each block will be three storeys, with a gross floor area across the projfect of 3322 sq m (35,756 sq ft) and usable area of 1779 sq m (19,149 sq ft).

The developer, New Advance Ltd, a subsidiary of Neutron Property Fund, acquired the 4,212 sq metre site, just behind the Cheung Sha Fire Station, three years ago for HK$290 million.

At that price, the developer will need to sell each building for a total of HK$50 million just to recoup the land acquisition costs alone.

Work on the site and foundations by mainland developer Sino Ocean is already well underway.

When complete the new development will join White Sands, Botanica Bay and a planned project near the San Shek Wan roundabout at the top end of the local property market.

‘Nonsense!’ Pan-Dems attack plan for third N. Lantau link to Kowloon

Yet another huge and hard-to-justify road project may be headed Lantau’s way.

With work yet to be completed on the HK-Macau bridge and the Chek Lap Kok-Tuen Mun link, the government is seeking HK$87.7 million for a feasibility study on a freeway from North Lantau to Yuen Long.

Legislators said the proposed Route 11, which would connect from Sunny Bay across the strait to Tsing Lung Tau, was identical to the ‘Route 10’ scheme put forward in 1997 and that Legco ultimately rejected in 2004, Inmediahk.net reported.

Under the original plan, the freeway was to run to Lantau’s south coast and then across central waters to reclaimed area around Kau Yi Chau and the west end of Hong Kong island – an earlier version of the East Lantau Metropolis (ELM).

Kwok Ka-ki, Civic Party member for New Territories West, described it as “nonsense,” and said it was intended solely to bring traffic onto Lantau for the ELM, which is not yet approved but is slated for mid-2030s.

Kwok said documents submitted to the Legco public works sub-committee showed that the government was bent on implementing the ELM.

 

Highways Department ‘indicative plan’

He said the next step would be the government declaring that there was “no way” that the project could be rejected.”

Labour Party’s Fernando Cheung also attacked the proposal.

The government had said NT West needed road links to urban areas, he said. “How is Lantau an urban area?”

The two pan-dems also pointed out that the project should be specified under the Hong Kong 2030+ plan, which won’t be issued until next year, and called on the government to clarify its plans.

DAB member and Islands District Councillor Holden Chow said he believed Lantau needed more road connections to Kowloon and Hong Kong, but the Route 11 plan would only make the Tsing Ma area a bottleneck.

If approved, the bridge-freeway would be the third road link between Lantau and the Kowloon Peninsula.

Currently, the sole connection is through Tsing-Ma Bridge, built in the 1990s to service the airport.

One of the reasons cited for the need for Route 11 is to provide an alternative, for occasions such as the Kap Mun Shui Bridge collision in 2015 which cut road links to the airport.

But the link from the airport to Tuen Mun, part of the HK-Macau bridge project and due to complete in 2020, is already an alternative land route.

Henry Sin, a researcher for Kwok Ka Ki, has said the original proposal, known as Route 10, was estimated to cost HK$35 billion. Writing for HK01 earlier this year, he said the Route 11 was likely to cost at least twice that.

Lantau family mourns death of daughter in Beirut

A South Lantau resident and her partner are today mourning the death of her daughter, a British Embassy worker who was murdered in Beirut two days ago.

Rebecca Dykes, 30, was found dead beside a freeway outside the city on Saturday, apparently abducted and strangled, the BBC reported.

Rebecca had been working in the UK Embassy since January as a programme and policy manager for the Department for International Development.

Rebecca grew up in Hong Kong and graduated from the University of Manchester. She earned a masters in International Security and Global Governance before joining the DFID seven years ago

Her family said in a statement: “We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Rebecca. We are doing all we can to understand what happened. We request that the media respect our privacy.”

Rebecca’s mother, author Jane Houng, posted on Facebook today:

RIP Rebecca Dykes 1987-2017
It’s true. My beautiful daughter was gruesomely murdered in Beirut last Saturday. Please send prayers to her, and respect the privacy of our family during this time. Thank you.

UPDATE: An Uber driver has confessed to Rebecca’s murder, the Guardian has reported.

Another slice of Pui O wetland under threat

Yet more of the Pui O wetlands is under threat of disappearing.

A landowner is seeking to turn more than 400 sq metres of wetland into agricultural land.

Already an area of approximately 150 sq metres has been covered with landfill.

Although the wetland is officially designated Coastal Protection Area (CPA), that offers no protection.

Under the city’s baffling planning and environmental laws, it can only be protected if it is zoned for development.

Just as inexplicably, the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) can give the go-ahead for landfill. A notice on the Pui O site indicates it has EPD “acknowledgement.”

The owner also has applied to the Town Planning Board (TPB) for permission to change the land use to agricultural.

Michael Lau, director of wetland conservation at WWF-HK, says he has reported it to the EPD “as yet another example of illegal landfilling about which they appear completely unable to do anything.”

Local environmentalists point out that the EPD notice appears to have been erected after landfilling began.

They also express surprise that the EPD has taken the step to approve the landfill while a judicial review (JR) is underway questioning that power and the way it is exercised.

The JR, filed two years ago, has been completed but the judge has yet to deliver a decision.

Additionally, if this part of a conversion to agricultural land, the landowner appears to be in breach of zoning regulations by having begun before the application is approved.

It is the latest of a series of assaults on the Pui O wetland, which is not organic wetland but is abandoned farmland that has been regenerated by the presence of water buffalo.

The buffalo now find their habitat is disappearing, as landowners dumped waste, carried out landfill, converted to farm land or fenced-off wetland areas.

It is made more complex because most of the land is held by private landowners.

There is some support from rural leaders for a land-swap, in which the government would exchange equivalent land for the wetland plots.

But the first such land swap was completed in June in Sha Lo Tung, a dragonfly breeding ground and an area described of “high ecological importance.” Yet that involved a single landowner and still took a dozen years to complete.

In her September policy address, Chief Executive Carrie Lam flagged up “conservation initiatives” in Pui O and other Lantau villages, but gave no specifics.

Those wishing to object to the landfill and conversion of wetland can object to the TPB or write to the Lantau officer plyau@epd.gov.hk  or Robin Lee, head of the Sustainable Lantau Office robinkblee@cedd.gov.hk.

Closed road: daily quota may be doubled

The Transport Department is considering doubling the number of private vehicles allowed into South Lantau each day.

Since February 2016, up to 25 private cars and 40 tourist buses have been permitted into the Lantau closed road area each weekday.

Now, because of what the department regards as the success of the scheme, it is planning to increase the quota to 50 cars and 50 buses, Sing Tao reports.

The paper notes that, apart from the requirement that five of the 25 private cars be electric, the private vehicle quota is full almost every day for the next month.

The proposed higher quota takes the TD back to its original plan, floated two years ago, of allowing 50 cars and 50 buses in daily.

It trimmed the numbers for the start of the scheme following an outcry from the local residents.

Chau Chuen-heung, a former DAB district councillor and now vice-chair of the Lantau Development Advisory Committee’s transport group, said that because the vehicles can only enter Lantau between 8 am and 7 pm on weekdays, they would avoid the weekend crowds.

She said the district’s concerns were over the lack of parking spaces.

However, besides the limited parking facilities, local residents are also anxious that once the closed road was lifted, the number of vehicles would continue to rise under pressure from local businesses and rural leaders.

With news of a plan to hike the quota, those fears have not been allayed.