The English clock on the old Star Ferry tower in Central can run for many more years without a hitch if it's restored using the right components, a British expert in old and antique clocks said yesterday.

Neil Brennan Wright, of Thwaites and Reed, invited to the city by the Hong Kong University Museum and Art Gallery, inspected the various parts of the Star Ferry tower clock and said that they were in good condition.

The Hong Kong Museum of History has the clock mechanism and the five striking clocks, with all their parts except some strings and connecting frames, are with the Star Ferry Company.

"The clock is 99.9 per cent complete and is a high quality clock. It can work perfectly well if restored properly, and it can continue to run for (another) 200 or 300 years," Wright said.

"In England, we've restored much older clocks or ones in a worse condition."

Also, technically it's feasible to reinstall the clock on a tower, Wright said, if a careful onsite calculation is done and it is properly maintained. The clock can be reassembled, too, and displayed in a museum.

"It's a living clock and I think it'd be better to display it on an outdoor tower," Wright said. "It's also from the last generation of the mechanical clocks in the 1950s, and it stands for a good era."

Asked if he was surprised by the people's emotional attachment to the clock tower, he said he could understand the reaction because there was great love for this kind of landmarks.

"There'd be riots in England if the Big Ben was pulled down. The clock you have in Hong Kong is important because you can't make a new one like that, or you could but it would cost a fortune."

While the cost of restoration is yet to be calculated, Wright said he and other engineers from the UK could carry it out in Hong Kong, though it would cost more than sending it to the UK.