GEORGE TOWN, March 19 — The majority of stakeholders have agreed to the upcoming cable car project, said Penang Hill Corporation (PHC) general manager Datuk Cheok Lay Leng today.

He said PHC, together with the project concessionaire, organised multiple tailored focus group discussions with stakeholders including non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as part of the project’s Social Impact Assessment (SIA) requirement.

"The project via its SIA, obtained a broad majority consensus from participating stakeholders,” he said in a statement here, adding that environmental group Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) however did not turn up at the focus group discussion.

Cheok was responding to a statement by SAM yesterday that called on the Department of Environment to hold a public display of the cable car project’s environmental impact assessment (EIA) before approving it.

SAM president Meenakshi Raman said it was wrong for the EIA to be approved without a public display session and obtaining public feedback on it.

She claimed that the project, as a model of transportation, will be listed under the Second Schedule of the Environmental Quality (Prescribed Activities) (Environmental Impact Assessment) Order 2015 which requires public display and public comment.

She also said the cable car project is a "mass rapid transport project” as it involves the transportation of 1,000 passengers per hour to the top of the hill as announced by Cheok.

Cheok clarified that the Penang Hill Cable Car project was classified under the First Schedule of the abovementioned Order under the category of development in slope area with land clearing less than 50 per cent of an area with a slope greater than or equal to 25 degrees but less than 35 degrees, which does require a publish display of EIA report.

He also stressed that the cable car is not considered a mass rapid transportation as it is not designed to carry mass numbers of people.

"The capacity of the cable car is 1,000 passengers per hour per direction (PPHPD). These figures are by far less than the PPHPD numbers served by other electric modes of public transportation, including monorails, MRTs and LRTs,” he added.

He said the EIA report is also publicly available at the Department of Environment’s library, and insisted that the implementation of the project was carried out following the law and had received approval from the relevant authorities, thus, fulfilling all compliance requirements.

"The technical studies on cable car alignment and tower locations were also conducted by the Doppelmayr Group engineers, who collaborated with local engineers on-site,” he said.

He said the team from Austria has a proven track record as they had installed cable cars in multiple United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) heritage sites, and the Penang Hill Biosphere Reserve is not the first Unesco biosphere reserve to implement cable cars.

"Cable car technology has been around for decades and has been globally recognised as a green mode of transportation,” he said.

He said it was successfully implemented at numerous Unesco sites worldwide, including World Heritage Sites, Biosphere Reserves and Unesco Global Geoparks, and this project is expected to contribute significantly to the tourism sector in the state.

On a separate matter, PHC said the deadline for Waterfall Cafe, which was asked to relocate to make way for the cable car project, was extended to June this year.

Cheok said the cafe owner, Anantha Raj, will need to revert to the district office with his relocation plans by the end of this month.

He also said the cafe owed substantial arrears in rental but they were still given alternative sites to relocate to.

"The Penang Northeast District Land Office had offered reasonable alternatives to Waterfall Cafe to relocate from the site and continue conducting its business but the cafe had rejected the offers,” he said.

Among the offers were a spot inside the new to-be-constructed multistorey car park complex as well as a temporary site for them to operate during the construction of the Penang Hill Cable Car system.