Availability of Accommodation
40. 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 and shop accommodation must also be available at the time that factories are cleared. No area can be cleared until new resettlement accommodation is available to house the people cleared.
Cultivation
41. If cultivated land is involved in the clearance, 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 government departments. In addition to compensa- tion, farmers or substantial pigbreeders cleared in the past have been eligible for shops in estates so that they may have an alternative form of livelihood but this privilege has now been withdrawn. The great majority of available shops are allocated as a first priority to shop- keepers who have been cleared and, as fewer shops will become avail- able in future because all new blocks will be sixteen instead of eight storeys high, there are already long waiting lists of cultivators and pigbreeders for shops in Hong Kong and Kowloon resettlement estates. These commitments will still have to be met, but pigbreeders and cultivators cleared in future will be given monetary compensation instead.
Manpower
42. Screening, investigation and arranging the orderly resettlement of residents, shops and factories all take time. The programme must therefore be planned to avoid wastage of manpower. It is not unusual for staff of the sub-division to be engaged in 40 to 50 clearance areas at any one time.
Interdependence of Clearances
43. 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.
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