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(c)
public, and demolition teams will be held in reserve to deal with them. The probable Licensed Area commitment is expected to be of manageable pro- portions;
in the New Territories the problem is not exactly similar, because of the New Territories Adminis- tration's land responsibilities and because of the wider scope for squatting in the rural areas. It seems likely that a rather less selective deploy- ment of staff will be appropriate, and hence in- creases of staff will be required.. Detailed proposals will be made to the Finance Committee in due course.
6
The effectiveness of these new guidelines in preventing fresh squatting should be reassessed after twelve months, to see whether the right balance is being achieved between avoiding additional expenditure (on staff and Licensed Areas) on the one hand, and keeping new squatting down to tolerable levels on the other.
Publicity
7
Bearing in mind the activities of racketeers in the construc- tion of illegal huts for sale, and the general undesirability of revealing strategy in operational matters to the general public, it is not proposed to make any announcement on this matter. However, it is intended to inform the Housing Authority and the Secretary for the New Territories that the 1964 White Paper is now regarded as obsolete, and that efforts should be directed at achieving the greatest possible degree of pre- vention of new squatting without excessive expansion of staff resources. At the same time the various other departments concerned (Police, City District Offices, Urban Services, Department, etc) will be en- couraged to report fresh squatting wherever it occurs.
8
Honourable Members will be asked to advise whether the new guidelines for the prevention of squatting set out in paragraph 5 should be adopted.
(The Secretary for Housing (Mr I. M. LIGHTBODY), the Deputy Director of Housing (Operations) (Mr B. V. WILLIAMS) and the Deputy Secretary for the New Territories (Mr E. B. WIGGHAM) will attend before the Council for the discussion of this item).
16th June 1976 (CR 25/8172/74)
COUNCIL CHAMBER
機密
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