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the sort of progress which must gladden the heart of even the Chairman of the Urban Amenities Select Committee. I know Members will join with me in thanking those officers of the Urban Services Department and the Public Works Department who have helped towards this result.

The figures which I have just enumerated are equivalent to an overall growth of such facilities by some 20% a year. However, I hope that by using all feasible means we can reach an annual growth rate of about 30% in the next few years. The necessary planning for this is well in hand, and, provided we stick to simple and economical methods, I hope that the Council will be able to open up new public pleasure grounds at the rate of some 80 acres a year.

On this basis we could, by the end of 1966, have about 80 chil- dren's playgrounds, 75 soccer and mini-soccer pitches and 160 small games courts for basketball, volleyball and badminton. This would be a step in the right direction.

I should like to refer now to Mr. CHEONG-LEEN's proposal that Government should appoint consultants to report on the feasibility of an oceanarium. At the present time all the resources which Govern- ment is able to devote to urban amenities are required to provide basic facilities such as parks and playgrounds. If additional resources are forthcoming in the years ahead, then it seems to me that the first step is for the Urban Amenities Select Committee to consider the type of project to which they should be devoted, be it more parks and play- grounds, indoor recreation facilities, or perhaps an oceanarium. In the meantime, Government's position in the matter must remain as set out in Mr. TINGLE's reply to Mr. CHEONG-LEEN at last August's Council Meeting.

There is one further aspect of urban amenities to which I would like to refer, namely, the Council's amenity tree and shrub planting programme. I do not think that it is generally known how many trees and shrubs we must plant each year to achieve our aim of making Hong Kong a greener, shadier and more beautiful place to live in. But I am quite sure that neither the 14,000 which we planted in 1962, nor the 27,600 which we planted in 1963, were enough. We intend to plant 60,000 trees and shrubs during 1964 and, I hope, somewhere in the region of 150,000 during 1965.

The prerequisite to all this is the opening up of new tree and shrub nurseries, for it is the lack of these which has been such a limiting factor in the past. Work is now well in hand on the development of some 8 acres of new nursery space by the end of 1965, and about half of this will be used to raise special stocks of 15 to 20 foot high trees for planting out along roadsides and outside new public buildings.

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In a few weeks time work will start on a tree planting experiment of more than usual interest. Dotted about Kowloon are numerous barren eroded hills. We are taking two of these, rehabilitating the worst eroded slopes, and then planting them with several thousand trees of hardy species such as Casuarina Stricta. If the experiment succeeds, Kowloon residents should ultimately have the benefit of a number of shady bill parks.

I must, however, sound a note of warning. Soil conditions are often so appalling that it is almost a miracle that anything grows at all, while in one day a typhoon can destroy the work of years. There is also the damage caused to young trees and shrubs by the public, particularly children. Ignorance is probably the biggest single cause and we are looking into Mr. SALES' suggestion for a tree-planting week as a means of counteracting this.

Several Members referred to the question of markets and market- ing facilities. This complex subject is currently under review by both the Markets and the Hawkers Select Committees and I think that it would be improper for me to expatiate upon it at this stage. However, I was particularly struck by Mr. BERNACCHI's suggestion that as more fresh provision shops are licensed the need for markets will gradually be reduced.

I turn now to urban cleansing, on which Dr. R. H. S. LEE raised a number of points. I will deal with these in turn. The first refers to the need for the early realization of the scheme for refuse incinerators, details of which have already been publicized. Two plants at a total cost of approximately $26 million have now been ordered and it is expected that the plant to be erected on the reclaimed land at Kennedy Town will be in operation by the middle of 1965, and the plant to be built at Lai Chi Kok will be in operation by the end of that year, or by early 1966. In view of the steady increase in the quantity of refuse to be disposed of, the possibility of building a third incineration plant in the eastern part of Kowloon is now being considered.

The second point concerns the introduction of modern mechanized equipment for street cleansing. The possibility of further mechaniza- tion of cleansing work is kept under constant review. The difficulties of employing mechanical sweepers in the congested streets of the urban area are evident, and the estimated costs of buying and maintaining specialized vehicles of this type have compared unfavourably with the costs of cleansing by manual labour. It is proposed, however, in the coming year to make a limited survey of a number of streets where the employment of a mechanized sweeping vehicle might be possible and a fresh comparison of costs will be made. The findings will be reported to the Environmental Hygiene Select Committee.