45
Wednesday, March 29, 1972
MODERNISATION OF OLDER TYPE RESETTLEMENT ESTATES
Estimated To Cost $700 Million At Today's Prices
The Commissioner for Resettlement, the Hon. I.M. Lightbody, said
today that preliminary proposals had been drawn up for modernising the older
type estates at a cost of about $700 million at today's prices.
The $700 million figure included the cost of building the necessary
new reception estates to allow the old ones to be vacated, he added.
He was speaking in the Legislative Council when the debate on the
Budget was resumed.
Mr. Lightbody said a start would be made on the Shek Kip Mei Estate
which now housed 60,000 people.
The Public Works Department had prepared a scheme for modernising
that estate, converting most of the old blocks with their communal toilets and
other communal facilities into self-contained flats, and demolishing other
blocks to make way for markets as well as multi-storeyed shopping and
commercial complexes.
"What we do in Shek Kip Mei will set a pattern for the clearance
of other old estates and we must find the right answers at the outset."
He pointed out that the clearance of Shek Kip Mei would be simply
the first of many such major upheavals in future and it was essential that
it should be a success.
"But to