Following is a question by the Hon Frederick Fung and a written reply by the Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands, Mr Michael Suen, in the Legislative Council today (May 17):
Question:
Will the Government inform this Council:
(a) whether the Buildings Department and other relevant departments conducted inspections in various districts throughout the territory in the past five years to ascertain the numbers of abandoned signboards in these districts, understand their conditions and assess the risks they posed; if so, of the resources and manpower deployed by the authorities for such inspections, as well as the current numbers of abandoned signboards in various districts and the risks they pose; if not, the reasons for that;
(b) of the number of abandoned signboards removed by the authorities for the owners concerned in each of the past five years and the amount of public money involved, as well as the number of cases in which the removal costs were successfully recovered; and
(c) of the existing measures to deal with the problem of abandoned signboards for protecting public safety and for avoiding the use of public money to remove abandoned signboards for the owners concerned, whether the authorities have assessed the adequacy and effectiveness of such measures, and whether they will consider introducing a signboard registration system to ensure that owners of signboards are responsible for removing their signboards?
Reply:
Madam President,
Our reply to the three-part question is as follows:
(a) The Government attaches great importance to the safety of advertisement signboards. The Buildings Department (BD) carries out regular inspections of signboards in all districts to curb the erection of unauthorised signboards and assess the safety conditions of these signboards. When dangerous or abandoned signboards are found, BD will take enforcement action under the Public Health and Municipal Services Ordinance (Cap. 132) by service of "Dangerous Structure Removal Notices" requiring the removal of the signboards by the signboard owners. Under emergency situations, BD will take the initiative to remove the dangerous signboards immediately so as to eliminate any imminent or potential danger that these signboards may pose to the public and then seek recovery of the cost involved from the owners of the signboards.
In the past five years, BD inspected around 210,000 signboards, issued around 4,600 "Dangerous Structure Removal Notices" and around 8,000 dangerous or abandoned signboards were removed.
Since abandoned signboards arise mainly because of the closing down of shops, and the relevant situation would change from time to time, BD cannot provide the exact number of abandoned signboards in each district. BD will assess the safety conditions of signboards during the regular inspections and take follow-up action if any abandoned signboards are found.
The signboard inspection and follow up work fall within the duty schedule of district teams under the Existing Buildings Division of BD. The district teams currently have a work force of some 170 staff. Since the above work is part of the Existing Buildings Division's work relating to building safety and removal of unauthorised building works, we are unable to provide information on the resources and manpower involved solely for signboard inspection work.
(b) In the past five years, BD removed 83 dangerous or abandoned signboards on behalf of the owners, amounting to a cost of about $690,000. About $500,000 was successfully recovered from the owners of the signboards. BD will continue to seek recovery of the outstanding balance. Details for each year are tabulated in the Annex.
(c) As answered in part (a), upon identification of abandoned or dangerous signboards, BD will invoke the power under the Public Health and Municipal Services Ordinance and serve "Dangerous Structure Removal Notices" on the owners of the signboards. If the owners of these signboards fail to comply with the relevant requirements within 14 days of receipt of the Notices, BD will arrange to carry out the removal works and seek recovery of the costs from the owners of the signboards.
In order to handle the abandoned signboards effectively and to increase the chance of successfully identifying the owners of these signboards, BD will maintain close cooperation with the District Councils. District Councillors will refer the cases of suspected abandoned or dangerous signboards to BD for follow-up action as soon as possible. The above mentioned arrangement has on the whole been working smoothly and effectively.
In 2000, the Government has considered the feasibility of introducing a "Signboard Registration System". Upon studying the implementation details of the proposal and analyzing views from various sectors, we observed that the establishment of a signboard registration system would increase the financial burden of the business owners and signboard owners as they have to pay various fees for registering the signboards and other relevant procedures. One of the suggestions under the proposed signboard registration system was the imposition of an additional levy in order to establish a fund for removal of abandoned signboards. Since the suggestion would be unfair to those responsible signboard owners and the establishment of the registration system would involve a tremendous amount of public money, the proposal was not adopted in the end.
As regards signboard safety, we consider that subsuming the control of signboards within the framework of the building control system is the simplest and most effective way to achieve the objective. The erection of signboards is currently under the same control system as that for other types of building works which will require supervision by registered professionals and approval of the Building Authority before commencement of works. In order to provide a simple and legal means to control the safety of smaller-scale signboards, they will be included in the proposed minor works control system. The draft bill for the proposed minor works control system will be submitted to the Legislative Council for scrutiny in the next legislative session.
Under the minor works control system, the erection of signboards will have to be carried out by registered contractors and the applicants will also have to submit their details to BD. This arrangement will thus assist BD in establishing the identity of the signboard owners and in following up their responsibilities, including the responsibility to remove the signboards.
Ends/Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Issued at HKT 14:16
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