Being a small and densely populated city, Hong Kong has always been in lack of natural fresh water resources, and the meagre amount of water collected at the gathering grounds in Hong Kong can hardly meet our demand. Fortunately, we have the support of the Central People’s Government. Since 1965, Hong Kong has been importing Dongjiang (DJ) water from Guangdong Province. The supply quantity has increased several times and DJ water now accounts for 70 to 80 per cent of Hong Kong’s total water supply. As DJ water is the major source of water for our daily lives, I joined 18 Legislative Council (LegCo) members in a two-day duty visit by LegCo’s Panel on Development to the DJ river basin a couple of days ago (14 to 15 April) to learn more about the DJ water supply facilities and their water quality monitoring and control work together with my colleagues. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the Mainland authorities for arranging the visit. I believe that the visit has enabled LegCo members to know more about the operation of the DJ water supply system and the enormous efforts of the Mainland authorities in safeguarding the quality of DJ water, as well as enhanced mutual communication and understanding......

Escalators are frequently used in our daily lives, so we must take every incident seriously. I as well as my colleagues from the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department (EMSD) attach great importance to the escalator incident that took place at Langham Place in Mong Kok on 25 March. A thorough investigation is being conducted by our EMSD colleagues, and preliminary investigation revealed that it was an extremely rare incident. As the metallic triplex drive chain was broken, and the broken chain safety device, which monitors the healthiness of the drive chain, was not activated as designed, the auxiliary brake therefore failed to stop the escalator in time. This double-failure is extremely rare, as there has never been any escalator incident in Hong Kong caused by the breakdown of the main drive chains and the dysfunction of the braking device at the same time. However, one accident is too many. Once the EMSD has completed the investigation, we will release the findings in detail as soon as possible to prevent similar incidents in future……

With spring in the humid air, flowers are in full bloom. Yesterday, I attended the “Hong Kong Tree Planting Day 2017”, which aims at promoting nature conservation, tree protection and public participation. While we enjoy lovely blossoms with our families at a park during holidays, have we ever realised that regular care is crucial to the healthy growth of trees? Trees, like any other organisms, have a natural life cycle. They grow, age, become weak and die. Their conditions also vary with time and the surroundings. To create a comfortable and save living environment, it is not only the efforts of government departments to maintain the trees professionally, property owners and management personnel should not take the matter lightly. They have to examine and properly maintain trees on their properties before the onset of wet season……

In recent years, extreme weather has wreaked havoc across the globe and Hong Kong cannot remain unaffected. Taking last year as an example, the annual total rainfall in Hong Kong was 3,027 millimetres, which is the ninth highest on record. The rainfall recorded in January and October was 267 mm and 624 mm respectively. These figures were several times higher than the normal value of 24.7 mm and 100.9 mm and they hit the highest and second highest rainfall record for these two months respectively. The black rainstorm warning issued on October 19 last year was the first ever issued in October since the rainstorm warning system came into operation. In view of this, we must take precautions and prepare for the rainy season to safeguard the lives and property of the public......

With my explanation last week, I believe readers would have understood that the accusation of the Government keeping a lot of “idle land” in urban areas is a myth rather than fact, and that the development of brownfield sites has always been a major source of the medium and long-term land supply for Hong Kong. I'm going to elaborate more on the social cost and necessary supporting measures for the development of brownfield sites, and respond to some criticisms about the Government withholding land resources and wasting urban sites for temporary use......