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an alternative means of acquiring land which will be
required for urban development, the Working Group has
not considered it in depth, because in practice only
very little land is acquired in this way. The policy
permits foot for foot exchanges of land within an
urban layout for land outside urban layouts. Its
attraction for landowners is that the timing of the
resumption programme is totally in the hands of the
Government, and the Special Acquisition Area policy affords
an opportunity for owners of land within urban layouts,
which is not likely to be required for some time, to make
use of it for development purposes before the resumption.
Its relative failure as a method of land acquisition
seems to have lain in the difficulty of finding suitable
sites outside the urban layouts for those exchanges.
Under the present policy, this is not a Government
responsibility, the intending applicant being expected
to find suitable land and seek approval of his
development proposals with the local District Office.
The Working Group sees no reason to interfere with these
arrangements, but it is open for consideration as to
whether some of the sites outside the layouts which
are presently included in the auction programme should
not be offered on a competitive basis to owners of land in
the Special Acquisition Areas.
/Review