David Dodwell

Inside Out | With Hong Kong budget in the red, Regina Ip is not wrong to question costly Lantau Tomorrow Vision

Ip wants priority for the cheaper Northern Metropolis project, which will provide homes for five times as many people and a more natural fit given the Greater Bay Area

Given Hong Kong’s budget deficits and a looming global recession, Ip is well justified in demanding that officials examine costs carefully

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Executive Council convenor Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee at her office in Wan Chai on August 3. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

David Dodwell

Published: 8:15am, 3 Apr 2023

Infrastructure mega-projects are controversial. They consume nail-bitingly large amounts of taxpayer money, invariably bump into unforeseen technical problems and often inflict environmental harm. They are always completed late and over the budget.

And there are always groups who don’t share the project’s vision and will work to block its progress. Such groups, often self-interested, make it difficult for political decision-makers to gauge the largest community interest and weigh the costs and benefits.

Hence the revived fuss, triggered by veteran politician Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, about the Lantau Tomorrow Vision project, which Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu seems set on protecting and Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po is preparing to fund.

Ip has suggested that a second mega-project, the Northern Metropolis, which focuses on developing the communities spanning our boundary with Shenzhen and strengthening Hong Kong’s links with our Greater Bay Area hinterland, should instead be prioritised.

At present, the government says we need both mega-projects. The controversy seems to have little to do with the validity of her concerns, and more to do with the political awkwardness of someone so close to the Hong Kong leadership questioning a high-profile project directly championed by our chief executive.

The Lantau project is, without question, visionary. It was initially championed by developer Gordon Wu in the 1980s, who saw the new artificial islands as stepping stones to Lantau’s development, linking Hong Kong to the cities west of the Pearl River: Macau, Zhuhai, Zhongshan, Jiangmen, up to Guangzhou.