Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1954-1955 — Page 54

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So Uk Village in Shamshuipo. Fire lane clearances were the most difficult of all because people had to be persuaded to move in order to benefit their neighbours who stayed behind; those in- volved naturally argued that the fire lanes should have been sited so as just to exclude their own huts. This particular fire lane clearance was not made any easier by the fact that So Uk Village was situated within two minutes walk of the bus routes, shops and factories of Shamshuipo; by comparison the Chuk Yuen Resettlement Area, where most of the squatters had to go, was four miles away on the outskirts of Kowloon. Nevertheless, within six weeks a team of four junior officers had established a temporary office on the spot, issued leaflets to 680 families, registered every family's requirements, allocated sites in Re- settlement Areas, arranged the photographing of each family, collected Crown permit fees in advance, arranged transport, and finally cleared 2,300 persons from 250 huts. All the huts were demolished voluntarily by their owners. Most of the other clearances undertaken by the Mobile Unit were of a minor nature, but mention may be made of the clearance at Tsun Wan in February, 1955, of 550 squatters occupying the site required for a new bridge at Mile Stone No. 9 on the Castle Peak Road.

65. There was however one major clearance which took place in the closing months of the year under review. One of the several multi-storey resettlement estates that had to be built with all possible speed lay between the Castle Peak and Tai Po Roads: it was called Li Cheng Uk and was to accommodate 45,000 persons. The site was occupied by 12,500 squatters living in the area of the old Li Cheng Uk Village. 2,750 of these were cleared and resettled in Chuk Yuen between November, 1954, and February, 1955. In February it became evident that a sub- stantial margin of accommodation would be available in the Tai Hang multi-storey estate and it was decided to use this for the remainder of the Li Cheng Uk clearance in order to complete the operation as quickly as possible. This was the first clearance direct from a squatter area into a multi-storey estate, and it was evident from the outset that such a clearance could be carried out much more rapidly than any other kind. In addition to the advantage of having ready-made accommodation to offer at a

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