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MR. SALES: -Mr. Chairman, when were the old plans referred back to the Town Planning Board?
CHAIRMAN: -I am sorry sir, I do not know. (Turning to the Director of Public Works) Can you help?
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS: -I think it was about two years ago, I'm not sure. The reason for the long delay in dealing with them is that we have been waiting to get the Mass Transport Study report, because the authors are proposing an underground railway station in the naval dockyard area and it would be quite impossible to, or quite absurd to, prepare a town plan until we know whereabouts the underground station will be sited, if it is built.
MR. SALES: -Thank you Mr. Chairman for that very clear reply. May I ask whether you are in a position to give us an assurance that the public open space formerly earmarked in that area will not in any way be cut down?
CHAIRMAN: -No, Sir, I cannot; but at the same time I have no reason to think that it will be cut down.
MR. SALES: -Thank you very much.
(2) MR. A. de O. SALES asked the following question:-
(a) How much land does the Government intend to set aside for public recreation in the Wan Chai reclamation? (b) When will such land be available for this purpose?
THE CHAIRMAN, URBAN COUNCIL, replied as follows:
(a) The Town Planning Board is in the process of preparing a plan for Wan Chai. No decision has yet been taken on the amount of land which will be set aside for public recreation.
(b) I am unable to give a firm date when land on the Wan Chai reclamation will be available for development. There is a great deal of work to be done after the filling has been completed; roads will have to be built and public utilities (drains, sewers, water mains, electric cables, telephone cables, gas mains, etc.) will have to be laid before the new land can be developed.
MR. SALES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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(3) MRS. E. ELLIOTT asked the following question:
Resettlement cases requiring social welfare recommendation are often urgent, but they frequently take several months before an answer is received. Can some explanation be given?
THE DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL WELFARE replied as follows:-
I understand that this question concerns the time taken to deal with cases in which resettlement accommodation is allocated to persons on what are commonly known as compassionate grounds. There is an annual quota of domestic accommodation for such cases to be allocated on the recommendation of the Social Welfare Department, the Medical Department's Social Workers or the Leprosy Mission. It is a very valuable resource to the casework services, and very much fuller use has been made of it since the issue of fresh instructions for its use following a review that I initiated last Spring.
The great majority of cases which result in compassionate resettlement being recommended arise in the course of ordinary casework; in other words when we are looking at the problems of a family one of the things we consider is whether there is a case for recommending resettlement as one means to resolve some specific problem with which they are faced. We also get a good many cases referred to us from voluntary agencies, and also a number from Ward Offices and Urban Councillors and from the Resettlement Department.
When we receive an enquiry, we have first to conduct an office interview with the client, and then carry out a home visit. This is absolutely essential to establish bona fides and to determine whether the conditions of eligibility are met. A report on the facts is then made to a casework supervisor, and if the supervisor approves of the recommendation it is included in the next list to be forwarded to the Resettlement Department. These lists are forwarded regularly in the middle and at the end of every month; further action is then taken by the Resettlement Department.
If there are features about the case which demand especially urgent action, the Resettlement Department is asked by telephone to complete action at once pending receipt of the next list, but it is not in general the case that investigations of this kind are particularly urgent, and they are again in general really less urgent than much of the other work that our caseworkers are responsible for.
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