(iii) Availability of Accommodation
23. Constant liaison with the Architectural Office of the Public Works Department ensures awareness of the numbers, capacity and completion dates of resettlement blocks under construction or being planned. To ease the economic burden on the people affected and the traffic load on the Colony's already crowded transport services, people are moved to the nearest available estate. Resettlement factory accommodation must also be available at the time that factories are cleared.
(iv) Cultivation
24. When this is involved, it is necessary to determine how long it will take to produce a large-scale survey plan, identify crops and pay compensation. The two latter processes involve liaison with other Govern- ment departments. In addition to compensation, farmers or substantial pigbreeders are eligible for shops in estates so that they may have an alternative form of livelihood. However, the great majority of available shops are allocated as a first priority to shopkeepers who have been cleared, and as a result there are long waiting lists of cultivators and pigbreeders for shops in Hong Kong and Kowloon resettlement estates. During the year alternative ways were under consideration of compensating these people and thereby eliminating the waiting lists. No decision had been reached before the end of the year.
(v) Manpower
25. Screening, investigation and arranging the orderly resettlement of residents, shops and factories, all take time, so the programme must be planned to avoid wastage of manpower. It is not unusual for staff of the Operations Division to be engaged in between 40 to 50 clearance arcas at any one time.
(vi) Interdependence of Clearances
26. It is sometimes found that, because of the configuration of the ground or the need for ancillary work on roads, drains and services for newly developed areas, it is necessary to phase a particular clearance in with another one.
27. After determining relative priorities, the division draws up a schedule of clearances for the information of the Government depart- ments and public utilities concerned, in which are set out the areas to be cleared and the estates in which the people will be resettled. This is an almost continuous process, for the clearance programme must be flexible and clearance dates are often changed due to unpredictable factors such
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