Tearing up Fanling will destroy a unique asset: golf club president

The three international courses at the Hong Kong Golf Club in Fanling are irreplaceable and cannot simply be rebuilt if they are torn up and replaced by housing, club president Marvin Cheung Kin-tung has warned.

"Relocating it is impossible," he told the in the first interview with a senior figure at the club since the government moved to review the land use of the 170-hectare site last July. And that was putting aside the impossible cost of rebuilding the site, Cheung added.

Losing the home of the 55-year-old Hong Kong Open would also mean Hong Kong losing its status as a world city, he said. "How can the city maintain the same level playing field with other international cities like Singapore, Shanghai and Shenzhen when they own more than one world-class course?"

The decision to review the land use came after the site escaped inclusion in plans for a 333-hectare new town development in the northeastern New Territories.

Critics argued that the pastime of the city's wealthy and powerful elite had been saved from the bulldozer at the expense of new homes for hundreds of villagers.

After villagers and activists threatened to occupy the golf courses, Secretary for Development Paul Chan Mo-po pledged to look at the feasibility of building residential tower blocks on the site as part of another planned new town.

However, the review is to take at least three years.