Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1955-1956 — Page 13

are on the spot till seven.

The department takes resettlement to the squatter and it is the rule for hundreds of huts to be demolished voluntarily in the presence only of the constable on the beat.

17. Recognition of the squatter's own position, and establishment of the proper relationship between him and the clearance and resettlement organization, are however only two of the points which require the department's constant attention. It is even more important, if clearance is to be as effective and rapid as the situation demands, to relate resettlement facilities to the needs of squatters as a whole. Whilst some squatters would obviously not, in their own particular circumstances, welcome resettlement, the department has as far as possible to meet the reasonable needs of as high a proportion as possible. The key to this lies in a detailed and accurate knowledge of each squatter area; of how the people live, where they work and how they will respond to the offer of resettlement.

18. An area at Sheung Li Uk in Kowloon, which was partly cleared during the year, may be taken as a good example of a fairly large squatter area. This occupied some 14 acres of land in a narrow valley between the Castle Peak and Tai Po roads, and immediately to the east of the Li Cheng Uk Resettlement Estate. For many generations this fertile valley had been cultivated by families of the Li Clan. Until the advent of the squatters, however, the valley contained no houses, for the village of the Li Clan lay in another small valley to the west. By 1949 the influx of hundreds of thousands of Chinese into Hong Kong, and the consequent shortage of every type of housing, led to the establishment of squatter colonies in this tranquil valley, and by 1953 the squatter colonies had grown and merged into an almost continuous sprawl, leaving only 4 acres of the richer land still under cultivation. The valley now contained 9,000 persons living in 800 structures, almost all of them illegal.

19. The focal point of the Sheung Li Uk squatter area was at the lower end of the valley, where the squatter area rubbed shoulders with the apartment buildings and factories of Sham- shuipo. Here was a large illegal market which stretched for

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