Wednesday, March 15, 1972
The Senior Unofficial Member called for a review of the policy on
the resettlement of squatters.
Sir Yuet-keung said this policy, apart from disaster victims and a
few special cases on compassionate and other grounds, "continues to be related
to the clearance of land required for development.
"While this policy was perhaps justified at the time resettlement
began some two decades ago, it is unsatisfactory that it should continue to
be applied today when conditions have so radically altered."
Rehouse Squatters
In its latest report, the Housing Board had recommended that Government
should rehouse squatters in the worst squatter areas in addition to those
cleared for development purposes, and that, as a first step, 30,000 people
should be rehoused in the next six years.
What was required, Sir Yuet-keung emphasized, "is not fringe modifications
but a thorough-going review of resettlement policy in the light of present
conditions."
Two major points of this resettlement policy needed to be examined.
The first was the question of the future of the oldest resettlement areas,
The second concerned "which have appropriately been described as our new slums."
the very large number of squatters in the New Territories, now totalling 270,000
as compared with 410,000 in the urban areas, including Tsuen Wan and Kwai Chung.
Sir Yuet-keung said about 40 per cent of the total number of squatters
were in the New Territories, "yet the effort to resettle these persons has so
far been marginal." In the five-year period ending last year, less than six
per cent of those resettled were New Territories squatters,
/Speaking
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