now being developed as light industrial areas, at Kwun Tong and Tsuen Wan.
It is unusual to undertake slum clearance during periods of acute housing shortage, but this state of affairs is likely to obtain for many years to come, and it is certainly not too early to commence to study the complex legal and practical problems which re-development of the older tenement areas will undoubtedly involve in Hong Kong, as they have elsewhere. Serious concern has also been expressed in some quarters over exemption proceedings in connexion with property in slum areas; where these are successful re-development is often carried out quite haphazardly, and with little regard to the future lay-out of the district. These problems, and many allied difficulties, are now under examination by a special committee set up by Government in February 1956, with wide terms of reference, to examine and report on the Colony's housing situation, including resettlement of squatters. The Committee is charged with the specific duty of recommending what measures should be taken to alleviate the housing shortage, so far as is practicable, taking into account the resources likely to be available for the purpose.
The Committee has already submitted its first interim report: it recommends that a Development Division of the Public Works Depart- ment should be created, and made responsible for the planning and execution of engineering works contingent on (1) development of new land for housing and industry; and (2) the creation of new towns or suburbs. These proposals have already been accepted in principle by Government and it is hoped their implementation will go some con- siderable ways towards relieving the existing shortage of sites suitable for development. But the salient fact which emerges from investigations carried out so far is that the problems of slum clearance, rehabilitation and re-development of slum property, and overspill, are so closely related that they can be regarded, to all intents and purposes, as aspects of one overall problem.
MEETINGS
Meetings of the Authority itself are normally held monthly, and during the period under review twelve such meetings were held. In addition press conferences are held from time to time in order to publicize various projects, or other matters of particular importance.
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