Court Renewal
Man Yee Playground
Have you wondered what’s happening behind the hording in the basketball court area of Man Yee Playground?
Explore asked the District Office to fill us in on the reason for the eight month closure of this area. Popular with kids of all ages, June 1st seemed an inopportune time to close off the court, just as students were coming up to their longest holiday of the year. However, with due respect to the planners, perhaps it was timed to coincide with the hottest and (usually) wettest time of the year.
The new plans, approved for publication by the
Click for larger image |
Architectural Services Department and LCSD, give the impression that it might be worth the long wait. A very small image is reproduced here but a larger image is available in this article on the Explore website.
Key changes for the basketball court are: lighting, repaving (with sport surfacing) and spectator benches. The structure under the trees where the older generation gathers for games and chatter is to be converted into a pavilion with benches (including backrests), lighting and sloped access. The existing meter room is to be relocated and the water tank to be demolished.
Overall, the concrete surfacing will be replaced with clay brick paving (presumably the same as that which covers the rest of Man Yee Playground) and the drainage channel is to be improved. The plans also call for “soft landscaping to be provided”.
Echoing the pleas of residents last November in the first (and so far only) English-language public consultation with the District Officer: please make sure that the mature trees around the structure where the grannies often sit are not be destroyed (that the pavilion design incorporates them) and take into consideration the drainage problems in the brick paving currently laid throughout the rest of Man Yee Playground when laying the bricks in the new section.
We look forward to the unveiling near the end of January 2008.