Road deadlock fails to break spirits as village work begins

Construction of a new eco-friendly village to house 47 families displaced by the HK$66.9 billion high-speed railway connecting Hong Kong with the mainland started yesterday.

But about 100 mostly young volunteers had to carry building materials by hand to the Tsoi Yuen New Village in Yuen Kong, Pat Heung, because the only access road available has been blocked by its owner.

No vehicles are allowed to reach the site because negotiations on using the private 500-metre road - connecting the new village to the main road - are deadlocked.

Leung Kam-ting, a relative of Heung Yee Kok chairman Lau Wong-fat, and four other people sought HK$500,000 from the 47 families to use the road. But that jumped to HK$5 million last month because someone else claiming to be a middleman wanted more money.

'We don't have the ability to make the Heung Yee Kuk help us to resolve this deadlock. Government intervention is our only chance,' said activist Chu Hoi-dick, who helped yesterday.

Mostly in their early 20s, the young people took up spades and hammers to clear weeds and put up fences on 188,000 square feet of land in Yuen Kong. The Tsoi Yuen New Village is three kilometres away from the 47 families' current home in Shek Kong.

But before the young volunteers could start work, they had to carry all the construction materials to the site.