PUBLIC WORKS AND UTILITIES
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provide better berthing facilities for ferries and other vessels. The seawall is designed so that it will also be possible to provide a vehicle ferry berth. A large number of minor works were also carried out during the year, including the construction on dangerous rocks of several automatic light beacons for the Marine Depart- ment. Some of these rocks are only accessible in exceptionally calm weather, which meant that it was only possible to work on a few days during the year.
The materials testing laboratory, which is operated by the port works office, carried out nearly 25,000 tests on building materials for Government departments and private firms. The figure was 18 per cent above that for the previous year. The biggest increase was in work for private firms and the fees for tests amounted to over $42,000. New apparatus is being installed to cope with the increasing demands for tests and to conform to revised British standards.
Land Development. The continuing demand for new building land in the Colony is being met both by large scale site formation and by reclamation schemes. Much of the land for two new towns is being provided by reclamation-Kwun Tong in New Kowloon and Tsuen Wan in the New Territories. Work at Kwun Tong started in 1955 and is planned for completion in 1968. So far two- thirds of the planned area of 588 acres has been formed, including 230 acres of reclaimed land. The average rate of production has risen to three acres a week. The population of the new town at the end of the year was 150,000 and 89 factories had been established. At Tsuen Wan many sites are being formed by private developers, while Government schemes produce about half an acre of building land a week. The main contract, which is to be let early in 1963, will provide 500 acres of new land in five years. Formation work, excluding services, will be carried out by con- sulting engineers and is expected to cost about $85 million.
Other major site formation schemes in hand include those for a military hospital, for low-cost housing at Valley Road and for high class housing at Ho Man Tin, totalling about 80 acres. In addition proposals have been submitted for the development, partly by private enterprise and partly by Government, of 183 acres of land opened up by the new Lung Cheung Road on the south side of