junction of Un Chau Street and Wing Hong Street and at the junction of Bedford Street and Walnut Street. Two operations were carried out to permit completion of drainage schemes, one at Wun Sha Street, Tai Hang, and the other at Chai Wan. A small operation was undertaken in Tsuen Wan to enable a water pipeline to be laid from the Tsuen Wan Service Reservoir.
55. In March, 1958, the first section of a new road to link Shek Kip Mei with Tai Hang Tung was cleared of thirty nine structures occupied by 127 families comprising 667 persons, to enable drainage works to commence along the extension of Nan Chang Street. These structures were mainly of stone and included a number of shops. The owners of substantial shops were resettled in Shek Kip Mei Estate, but domestic families had to move to Wong Tai Sin Estate, as this was the only estate which could provide accommodation for all the 8,700 persons who will finally have to be moved before the operation is completed. Clearance operations were still in progress at the end of the year under review.
56. Of the sixty four land clearances during the year, twenty five included the clearance of cultivation, mostly illegal. The first step in carrying out a cultivation clearance is for an accurate plan to be made, on the scale of twenty feet to the inch, showing the boundaries and exact areas of each cultivated plot. When this has been completed by the Department's Construction Unit the crops on the ground are identi- fied by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Department for the purpose of assessing crop compensation based on the current market price of the various crops. To the value of crops is added an allowance for land disturbance varying from five cents to sixty cents per square foot, depending on the length of time the cultivator has occupied the land. This is determined after the cultivator has been interviewed at the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs. It is the usual practice to pay the ex-gratia compensation one week before the land is required.
57. During the year three clearances of cultivation were made which did not involve the resettlement of any persons. In November a site for the new Ma Tau Chung fire station was cleared, and in December an area for industrial development near Island Road, Aberdeen, while in March two-thirds of an acre of cultivation was cleared for new housing at Jardine's Lookout, Hong Kong.
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