1 October 2008 : China Daily HK Edition (By Zhao Xu)
In a move designed to show that it has taken the matter into its own hands, the government announced in February the launch of the Revitalizing Historic Buildings Through Partnership Scheme. The Commissioner for Heritage’s Office was subsequently established to oversee this and other future projects on heritage conservation. His office has just launched a new initiative to offer grants to owners of private graded historic buildings in need of upkeep and repair. The ceiling for each application is kept at HK$600,000. And the commissioner admitted that right now there’s nothing that the government can do if the owner of a private heritage building decides to let his building languish without doing anything. “But this is ridiculous,” says Maggie Brooke who is the convener of Heritage Hong Kong. “In the UK, if your building is listed, then you cannot change any part of it without government permission. You certainly cannot pull it down.”