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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
COMMISSIONER for ResettleMENT:-I am the competent authority for resettlement in the New Territories, but the control of squatters is vested in the District Commissioner.
MR. SALES: Sir, perhaps you might ask the New Territories District Commissioner for the answer to the following supplementary questions, because it involves the total housing problem in Hong Kong and the Urban Council should, as we are members of the Hong Kong Housing Authority, be given information. What is the total number of squatters in the New Territories?
CHAIRMAN:-This would go to the Housing Authority, if anyone Mr. SALES, not this Council.
MR. SALES: No, Sir. I have asked you, as Chairman of the Urban Council, to get the information from the New Territories Administration in order that we may study the problem more intelligently. Surely the information should not be denied to us as a body responsible for low rental housing in Hong Kong.
CHAIRMAN:-In the urban areas, Mr. Sales.
MR. SALES: --And also in the New Territories. We have estates in the New Territories.
MRS. ELLIOTT:-Mr. Chairman, I think the figure is 120,000.
MR. SALES: Mr. Chairman, it is not necessary any more to have either the Commissioner for Resettlement on this Council or the District Commissioner, New Territories? Mrs. ELLIOTT will in the future give us all the information that is needed, and I am most obliged to Mrs. ELLIOTT for that. (Laughter).
MRS. ELLIOTT:-It is in the Housing Board report (but I think nobody wants to see a copy).
CHAIRMAN :-That is correct, Mrs. ELLIOTT.
(3) MR. A. de O. SALES asked the following question:
(a) What measures are taken to prevent new squatting? (b) To what extent has new squatting taken place last year?
THE COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT replied as follows: --
The measures the Resettlement Department takes to prevent new squatting are described in Chapter 3 of our recently published annual report for the year 1969-70. Although this report is available to the public, I am grateful to