XN000022-1972-03-29 — Page 72

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Wednesday, March 29, 1972

He said it was not easy to be sure that if a building was allowed

it would never be in the way of anything and therefore, it was tempting to allow a "temporary" building and villagers had found that it was easier to

just as get Government to approve temporary buildings than permanent ones -- Government found it easier to get supernumerary staff than permanent staff

to deal with new work.

"I came to the conclusion that while approval of temporary structures

might satisfy some deep felt bureaucratic need to avoid taking a decision, it did not give the same satisfaction to villagers' equally deeply felt need for

a home to call his own.

"I have therefore been working since last summer on a package of

measures designed to allow small buildings to be as permanent as land title

can make them in places where they are allowed at all, to simplify the procedures and remove unnecessary restrictions on the construction of the buildings themselves but to require rigid compliance with the few essential

requirements, mainly of a health and safety nature," Mr. Bray said.

On the matter of resumptions, he believed the answers might be found

in a more general use of deferred exchanges outside layout areas or very much

greater cash payments than the market normally makes.

"Exchange entitlements for land surrendered in a layout area are

well liked by New Territories land owners though few townsmen have ever heard

of a Letter B", he said.

1

The Kuk had suggested the same principles be used for land surrendered

outside a layout area and these proposals were being examined sympathetically.

/On re-entry,