Hong Kong government’s environmental report on golf club site professionally designed, lawyer says
- Senior Counsel Jin Pao counters Hong Kong Golf Club’s claims that government report was ‘deficient’ and in breach of compliance standards
- Club’s higher survey numbers of bat and moth species on its Old Course was due to different methodologies and areas covered, he says
The Hong Kong government’s study on moths and bats at the city’s oldest golf course was “professionally designed and supervised” and able to stand up to any judicial challenge, the High Court heard on Friday.
The argument was presented a day after the court was told of a vast difference in the numbers of bat and moth species identified by the Civil Engineering and Development Department, as compared to those identified by the Hong Kong Golf Club.
The department found 38 species of moths and only one species of bat in its environmental impact assessment report for the Old Course in Fanling, while a survey done by the club identified at least 729 moth species and 15 bat species.
The golf club last year lodged a judicial challenge against the director of environmental protection’s conditional approval of the department’s report, which could allow for a public housing project on the Old Course.
Development authorities last September proposed building 12,000 public housing flats on 9.5 hectares (23.5 acres) of the golf course, part of the 32 hectares of land taken back by the government.
But the court imposed an interim order halting any construction decisions arising from the environmental impact assessment report after the club filed a judicial challenge in response.
