bulk supply of copies have only been received by the Crown Agents recently.
It is a report only in general terms and much planning work remains to be done on which the Hong Kong planning staff are now working. It covers the planning of the whole of the Kowloon area up to the ridge of the hills behind Kowloon and that of the town of Victoria on Hong Kong Island. There is a valuable passage on pages 7 and 8 of the report on "Housing: density and re-distribution" which is no doubt being carefully studied in Hong Kong. The report suggests
that 156,700 persons require removing from Hong Kong and 29,250 persons from Kowloon to achieve a density of 500 persons per acre, which is regarded as the maximum desirable, and recommends, that the aerodrome site at Kai Tak should be developed to take this surplus population. (since then of course the surplus has increased enormously and steps are now being taken to limit more immigration into Hong Kong, as the danger point from the point of view of food supplies, etc. is being reached). Until, however, Deep Bay airport is built the aerodrome area at Kai Tak cannot be released. It is no doubt because Hong Kong has been waiting for
this scheme as well as for the reasons set out at the beginning of this paragraph that new housing schemes have not been embarked on as has been done in Singapore, where there has been no question of the wholesale replanning of the town to complicate the matter. In Hong Kong in any case private enterprise would probably carry out such schemes far more economically and much more rapidly than the Government would be able to do. Even now we have not had Hong Kong's ten-year development plan, which in its turn has awaited the consideration of Sir P. Abercrombie's report, since the Government of Hong Kong will no doubt wish to set aside a considerable portion of development money for the implementation of that plan. suggest that the present is not the moment at which to press the Governor reasonably for the production of the plan, the financing of which in existing circumstances must inevitably give rise so far as Hong Kong's contribution is concerned to some complex issues. It should be added that as part of its contribution against the conduct of cold war by the Communists in China the Public Works Department of Hong Kong has undertaken many commitments on behalf of the military and air forces now stationed there.
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