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help! Our every sympathy is aroused by the stories of intense over-crowding, as we listen to their natural desire for better, more spacious accommodation for the sake of their growing family of youngsters.
The solution, as has already been pointed out, is decantation, and the application of that well-known person's formula, Mr. SALES, to both the former and newly resettled families alike. But, the implications of the adoption of this principle may mean an intolerable delay to even more deserving families waiting their turn in the queue in huts on hillsides, resite areas, slum dwellings scheduled for demolition, etc. Unless, and this is the nub of the problem, an even greater and more intense effort can be made by Government to implement and expand its Resettlement Building Programme. No doubt the recent crisis in real estate, which touched off the collapse amongst many of the contractors working on resettlement construction, is partly responsible for the setback in new quarters being made available this year. I look forward therefore, with interest to Government's projections regarding project completion dates, and what effect this will have during 1967, on the problems I have referred to.
Another factor which is causing problems and to which I wish to draw attention to is the growing necessity to re-house Island dwellers onto the Mainland because of the difficulty of finding further sites for resettlement estates on the Island.
As a loyal Mainlander, I need hardly dwell on its many virtues and advantages, but seriously speaking it must create much pain and anxiety, both economic and emotional, to pull up one's roots and transfer bag and baggage, beyond even Urban Kowloon, into the hinterland of the New Territories, where quite obviously, future resettlement estates must expand.
An alternative might be to expand and extend the present Chai Wan Reclamation, and to carefully re-examine other possible sites on the Island that may have been previously discarded. I hasten to add that I bring up the name of Chai Wan with some trepidation, realizing that I am now on hallowed ground, trespassing on the preserves of our respected and experienced Member for Chai Wan.
Whilst the many arguments for and against the establishment of a Greater Hong Kong Council on the basis of our Ad Hoc Committee's Report will continue to form the subject of much discussion and oratory over the next few months, there surely can be no real objection on the part of the Establishment to expanding this Council's jurisdiction into those functions in the New Territories for which it is responsible in the Urban Areas. I refer to Resettlement Estates, Cleansing, Beaches, Parks, Playgrounds, Swimming pools, the lot.
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I think the inhabitants of the New Territories would soon find out that their interests in those particular fields would be better catered for, if their problems were subjected to the scrutiny of this Council's Select Committees and monthly meetings. Not that I am damning the Government's own departmental efforts, far from it, they are worthy of great praise, but I do believe that teamwork by Official and Unofficial Members on this Council do a better job.
At the very least it could provide a sounding board for frustrated moans. How this representation and extension of responsibility can be made effective, (I deliberately leave out the word "power" which is misleading) I happily leave to my colleagues who are more expert in these abstruse constitutional matters.
I do wish some way could be found to develop and equip playgrounds in resettlement estates while estates are in course of construction, instead of the present method which can result in a delay of a couple of years from the time the first block of a new estate is completed, before any play facilities have started. During that time lag the early young inhabitants have only the formed hillsides, or contractors' yards to occupy their leisure time and absorb surplus energies. I should like the Commissioner for Resettlement to examine this problem in conjunction with the Urban Services Department. I presume it is merely a question of affording priority to the use of the Block Vote.
Having trampled gently into the preserves of Chai Wan, I now take up the cudgels on behalf of my fellow residents and Ward Constituents in the eastern part of Kowloon, and enter the confines of a Select Committee whose deliberations and decisions are in the capable hands of my colleague the Hon. Wilfred WONG, I refer to Markets.
The 1966 bi-census reveals a population of some 800,000 people in the area Lyemun west to the Kai Tak area. This population explosion will continue with the completion of the Resettlement and Low-Cost Housing estates now under construction. With all this housing activity what provision is there for the housewife to do her marketing? A small one at Kwun Tong. A few stalls at Chun Wan Road. The nearest public market of any consequence is at Kowloon City, miles away. The net result, swarms of hawkers everywhere.
This situation will get much worse as new estates are completed and I suggest there is an impelling need for a drastic reappraisal of the Markets Policy towards perhaps lesser-known Kowloon, and I commend this problem with confidence to my able colleague's Select Committee.
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