workshops. These were of the standard 120 or 240 square feet, and squatters who had been operating shops or workshops suitable for accommodation in domestic blocks before they were resettled were thus able to continue their business after moving. The modifications introduced in the later blocks built from 1961 onwards produced a variety of shop sizes which are shown with the rents payable at Appendix 4. At the end of March 1969, there were 8,317 ground floor rooms let as shops and 1,487 as workshops, the latter being in loca- tions where the opportunities for retail trade are minimal. Among those set aside for shops, 518 were operated as restaurants, 350 for the sale of fresh provisions, mainly meat and fish, and 78 for the sale of roast meat. The rest house a wide miscellany of trades including hairdressers and dry-cleaning depots. The ground floor workshops also accommodate a great variety of enterprises, while tenants have always been allowed to carry on certain simple and inoffensive cottage industries in their upper floor domestic rooms-for example tailoring, assembling plastic goods, and knitting.
83. At the time when the original estates were built and occupied no provision was made for squatter factories and as a result, many workshops or cottage industries were set up in the upper floors. These businesses have since proved to be unsatisfactory neighbours for domestic tenants. In 1967, the department carried out a survey of all small scale industries operating in the four oldest estates at Shek Kip Mei, Tai Hang Tung, Lei Cheng Uk and Hung Hom, which showed that nearly 5,300 cottage industries are being operated in upper floor domestic rooms. The possibility is being examined of finding alterna- tive accommodation for the more obnoxious of these industries.
RESTAURANTS
84. The majority of restaurants in the Mark I and II blocks range from 240 to 480 square feet, although a few are substantially larger. The statutory health requirement that one-third of the floor area must be used for kitchen, scullery and food preparation appreciably reduces the permissible seating area and it was therefore to be expected that the owners would tend to encroach onto the open space in front of and behind their premises, where storage, food preparation, cooking and the seating of customers create obstruction and dirt. In 1967, the Urban Council therefore approved proposals which would permit, wherever space is available, the erection of covered outside seating in front of restaurants in Mark I and II blocks. The first permits for this
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