A photographer was injured in the scuffle between police and more than a dozen protesters who stormed the site of the old Star Ferry pier in Central to stop its demolition.

The protest started when workers were removing the clock from the pier's tower with the help of a crane around 3 pm. As they prepared to place it on a barge waiting nearby, more than 10 protesters cut open the canvas on the fence around the pier and ran inside.

Police stopped them in their tracks, but the demonstrators picketed outside the fence, threatening to stop the demolition.

Legislators Cheung Chiu-hung and Kwok Ka-ki reached the scene to mediate a "truce", but without success.

In the evening, a group of protesters, broke the lock of the gate to the construction site and barged in.

The photographer was injured in the scuffle that ensued between police and security guards and the demonstrators and was rushed to hospital.

Later, another group of protesters broke through the cordon and "took over" the site.

They shouted slogans through loudspeakers and waved banners demanding an immediate stop to the demolition. Some of them even climbed on top of a bulldozer and the roof of the pier and demanded an urgent meeting with Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands Michael Suen.

Scores of police officers, firemen and ambulance paramedics stood by, and the road outside the pier was sealed off for security reason.

The old Star Ferry Pier, opened in December 1957, is one of the few landmarks of Central of the old days.

But after consulting the Antiquities Advisory Board, the government decided in 2000 to demolish it, along with the Queen's Pier.

Two years earlier, it had announced its plan to reclaim land to make way for the P2 road network and some underground works and shift the Central ferry piers westward.

Subsequent public consultations focused on the area of the reclaimed land but the piers' demolition escaped public attention till a couple of months ago.

The Antiquities Advisory Board reiterated yesterday that no objection had been raised against the demolition of the Star Ferry pier plan even in 2002.