‘Too slow’: Hong Kong’s new university town faces questions over plans

Hong Kong’s Baptist University placed a big bet when it told the government in 2023 that it was interested in moving its campus from the upmarket Kowloon Tong residential area to a proposed new academic town near the mainland Chinese border.The 70-year-old university’s move to the Northern Metropolis megaproject will mean giving up a prime site for a spot where most of the land has yet to be prepared for construction, although its proximity to mainland tech hub Shenzhen and the Lok Ma Chau Loop, partly earmarked for an innovation and technology park, has obvious appeal.“The Northern Metropolis neighbours the most innovative city in Mainland China, and while Hong Kong is developing innovation and technology, we can utilise the resources in the vicinity,” university president Alexander Wai Ping-kong told the South China Morning Post in an interview this month.“Our students and professors can reach Shenzhen and the Lok Ma Chau Loop directly and conveniently.”The university town is one of the core developments in the megaproject that aims to turn 30,000 hectares (74,132 acres) of land near the border into an engine for economic growth and a housing hub.Baptist University is not the only one that has ambitions, with 18 other local public and private institutions also submitting proposals to the government in 2023 to set up operations or build facilities there.Some have proposed setting up satellite campuses to provide more academic and research space for developing innovative programmes, while others plan to promote vocational education involving cooperation with industries and integration of science and education.