TNAG-0317-FCO40-353-Policy-of-housing-and-resettlement-in-Hong-Kong-problem-of-s-1971 — Page 30

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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

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block vote for the Recreation and Amenities Select Committee. This arrangement has proved so very successful in the development of our recreational facilities, and will certainly prove equally useful for the expansion of the cultural services which this Council provides for the education and entertainment of the public of Hong Kong. Secondly, the Council has proposed that Government should consider acquiring a portable stage so that we might take our programmes to the people beyond the confines of the City Hall. This we have tried to do once before, but we have not gone ahead again because the experiment, without the aid of an accoustics shell, has not proved good, much as we would have liked it. Such equipment costs less than half a million dollars as we have discovered from enquiries made, and so there can be no justification in our affluent circumstances for Government to withhold the early purchase of this equipment which would greatly benefit the people throughout the urban areas and particularly in the New Territories. The Urban Council is seriously handicapped in its wish to go out and make available to the people everywhere, more so in the thickly populated districts, the programmes which we have been able to present in the City Hall.

Then, as our ultimate target, we must ask once more that Govern- ment seriously consider, and in double-quick time, the construction of the Civic Centre in Kowloon which we have urged upon the Govern- ment for ever so long. It surprises me that, notwithstanding the research the Urban Council has done in this matter, Government has still taken so long to reach a decision in principle. Surely, the need for these facilities elsewhere than in the Central District need not be proved anymore as the statistics which we have on the usage of the City Hall over the years are very impressive. Indeed, the demand is so great that it is clear the Government owes it to the people to build quickly such facilities in Kowloon where the population is more than double that of the Island.

MR. B. A. BERNACCHI:--Mr. Chairman, a very short statement or speech on resettlement in our progress report. I note, almost with horror, that only 9,640 persons were offered resettlement in urban estates. Therefore, I urge Government to investigate more sites in the urban areas, in particular, more on Hong Kong Island. I have elab- orated on this theme in committees very often in the past year, and I think that the situation is getting almost desperate. There are very many squatters and very many other persons entitled to resettlement on Hong Kong Island, and indeed in Kowloon but in Hong Kong Island especially, that have not got the estates to move to. Hing Wah estate in Chai Wan is now ready, Stage I is, but where are the other estates? What has happened to the proposal to erect another resettlement estate in Aberdeen? Has there been any investigation into estates, further estates, in the southern part of Hong Kong Island. Admittedly the

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