The Buildings Department (BD) has been urged to take swifter action when it comes to removing dangerous signboards hanging over the city’s streets, a call which could see more of Hong Kong’s iconic neon signs in the firing line.
The recommendation was made by the city’s audit commission in a recent report which found the BD had a huge backlog of outstanding removal orders for dangerous signs.
The audit found that, as of April 2018, there were 1,414 removal orders issued for signboards that had not been cleared.
Of these, some 42 percent have been outstanding for more than 12 months and at least one pending for 12 years. Not a super speedy record, given the official time limit is 60 days after a notice is issued.
Meanwhile, on the pointy end of enforcement, the majority of cases had lagged, the report found.
Of the 214 non-compliant removal orders referred to the authority’s legal services section in 2016 and 2017, 62 percent had not been sent until at least a year after a warning letter was sent to the signboard owner.
The BD is responsible for assessing the estimated 120,000 signboards in Hong Kong, a category which includes neon signs, and making sure those considered dangerous are either fixed or removed.
During the past five years from 2013 to 2017, there were eight incidents involving fallen signboards which caused injuries to 11 people, according to the report.
As explained in Coconuts HK’s feature about the decline of the city’s neon signs, most signboards in Hong Kong, built in recent decades, are considered unauthorized.
Neon’s Dimming Legacy: Turning out the lights on a ‘golden era’ in Hong Kong
The BD has a program to “validate” signs that don’t pose a risk, however this has also been slow.
While it’s estimated that some 72 percent of the city’s signboards would be eligible for validation, only 662 people had applied for the program with fewer, 274, accepted.
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