The Leisure & Cultural Services Department has suggested that parties who failed to get approval to hold their activities in Victoria Park on October 1 consider rescheduling them on October 2.
The Civil Human Rights Front made an application under the name of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions to hire Victoria Park's six soccer pitches and the central lawn from September 30 to October 1 for a public gathering. It had been denied, and the department said it had contacted the applicant to explain the difficulties of processing its October 1 application as it could cause inconvenience and confusion to the public as their were different activities to be held in the park on that day.
The department said another group had earlier scheduled a large-scale event on the parks's six soccer pitches on the afternoon of October 1, so other subsequent applications for use of the soccer pitches could not be entertained.
In addition, it said, the Civil Human Rights' public gathering's large number of participants far exceeded the central lawn's capacity, so it was not able to accept the application.
The department had also declined applications made earlier by two other groups for staging events on the central lawn on October 1 based on the same considerations. These two groups had rescheduled the dates for their activities.
The department said that it will ask the other event organiser to clear and return the soccer pitches as soon as the event on October 1 concluded, to release more space on October 2 for the applicant's consideration.
