Report Removed to Guarantee Demolition

The Antiquities Advisory Board will discuss tomorrow the listing of the Government Hill. The Antiquities and Monuments Office, however, removed an expert report on the Central Government Offices, saying it did not understand what the report was and would not put it forward for the board discussion even if there was such a report.

Louis Lor, an architect and one of the experts, said he was very disppointed about the disappearance of the report, which mentions that the Government Hill and the Central Government Offices "cannot be dismembered." He insisted that there should not be any grading for the Hill because it is unquestionably Hong Kong's most important monument.

No. 18 Lower Albert Road, Hong Kong
By Albert Cotton, from Wikimedia Commons

The report shows a rare instance of double grading, the experts said as per the Antiquities and Monuments Office's request: grade 1 for the whole office complex and grades 1, 2 and 3 for the Main, East and West Wings respectively. It is suspected this was due to pressures from the government, who still insists on demolishing the West Wing.