20
HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT
external decoration save a facing of black slate. The third and final section is expected to be completed by the end of 1958.
But offices and quarters took only a small part of the funds now allocated to public works. As the Governor had in- dicated in addressing the Legislative Council, Hong Kong's growing importance as an industrial centre, coupled with the increasing pressure of population, necessitated the spend- ing of more and more money on roads, drains, ferry piers, harbour development, schools, hospitals, clinics, markets and other community needs. Two special responsibilities of the Government of Hong Kong have always been to provide new land by reclamation and to build reservoirs. The pre-war reservoirs, which provided barely sufficient water storage for a population of just under a million, had become totally inadequate. A pre-war project for a great reservoir in the Tai Lam valley, in the New Territories, was therefore revived.
Another utility strained to its limits was the airport at Kai Tak where the runways, built by the Japanese, although since resurfaced, were still not equal to the heavier aircraft and increased traffic of the post-war air age. Unhappily, those very features which make a good natural harbour for shipping-broken spurs of sheltering hills—are aviation hazards, and one of Hong Kong's biggest problems was to find sufficient level ground and flight funnels to meet not only current but also future aviation requirements. Many schemes were examined before it was agreed that the only practical answer lay in the typical Hong Kong solution to so many problems-reclaiming new land from the sea; and it was decided that the airport should remain at Kai Tak but that an entirely new runway, of sufficient length to meet the requirements of large modern jet airliners, should project out into Kowloon Bay.
More conventional reclamation schemes, for a variety of purposes, were also being pushed forward. Projects started