provided, for example timber yards, and waste or scrap metal dealers; foundries and the like, for which adequate ventilation and flues cannot be provided; waste cotton refiners and bedding manufacturers, because of the obnoxious processes involved and because they generally require more space than could be made available; and all food factories, since it was considered that the facilities available were not sufficient to provide hygienic accommodation for the processing of food.
100. Though a higher rent is charged for ground floor units their ease of access has made them very much more popular than those on the upper floors. However, certain trades such as metal-ware manufac- turers, weaving factories or small sawmills, because of the size and weight of the machinery used or the nature of the work carried on, are given priority for ground floor rooms. Any process which might constitute a fire risk, as for example plastic work, is accommodated on the top floor.
101. The majority of concerns to which space has been allocated in the Cheung Sha Wan Factory have come from the Wong Tai Sin and Tai Kok Tsui areas, and by the end of the year under review 120 factories and workshops had been allocated 450 units out of the total of 470 units in the factory.
102. Clearances of these factories are carried out by the Mobile Unit and have presented a number of problems not met with in domestic clearances. Where a concern is using processes considered unsuitable for accommodation in the factory, the proprietor has to be persuaded either to modify his method of work, or to forego space in the factory. The exact dimensions of the working space within the squatter factory have to be calculated so that the number of the units to be allocated can be readily computed. The factory workers actually living on the premises before the clearance have to be registered and screened, and arrange- ments to be made to offer them accommodation in estates not too far distant from the factory.
103. By the end of the year under review a Resettlement Factory of the same basic design was under construction in Chai Wan Estate. This factory incorporated certain modifications resulting from the experience gained at Cheung Sha Wan, mainly the provision of chimney flue stacks for small furnaces on half of one wing of the third and fourth floors and an enlarged penthouse on the rooftop for a canteen. Plans have also been made for a factory building at Jordan Valley Estate and for a second factory at Cheung Sha Wan.
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