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situated) are load-bearing. This means that if the restaurants were expanded to two-bays there would be no direct access between bays. Internal archways, suitably reinforced, might be possible but would of course be expensive. In connexion with the second course, the charge to be levied for the occupation of space outside restaurants is now being calculated, and the legal implications examined. Amendment of the Ordinance and/or Regulations will be necessary since there is at present no provision for making charges of this kind. Restaurant tenants will obviously need to be given a fairly complete picture of the financial and legal implications before they commit themselves to the expense of erecting outside shelters of an approved design.

No action has been taken yet to persuade tenants of ground floor premises in Mark I and II blocks to give up their premises so that adjacent one-bay restaurants may expand. It is felt that tenants of one-bay restaurants ought to be given the option of outside seating or of expanding into adjacent rooms. If the two lines of action were pursued in succession rather than simultaneously, there may be complaints that a different and perhaps cheaper course would have been chosen if the tenant had known of it in time.

I hope that, as soon as charges for outside seating have been calculated and approved in principle, it may be possible to put the whole scheme into effect.

I might add that the relevant Select Committees have recently agreed to the formation of a small Ad Hoc Committee to consider the general policy on resettlement restaurants. Members of that committee may wish to re-examine the question of one-bay restaurants in the course of their deliberations.

In the meantime, as requested at the meeting of the Standing Committee of the Whole Council in June last year, the Resettlement Department is taking no action to require restaurant tenants to confine their businesses within their premises.

(7) MRS. E. ELLIOTT asked the following question :-

Now that the wet season is almost here, can any assurance be given that the retaining walls and earthworks in Tsz Wan Shan and other new resettlement estates are safe,

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and will adequately protect the people and their homes from such flooding as occurred two years ago in Kwun Tong?

THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS replied as follows:

I can assure Mrs. ELLIOTT that every reasonable precaution is taken to ensure that the retaining walls and earthworks at new Resettlement Estates are safe. I am not aware that any retaining walls have failed, but so long as we have to carve out sites for Resettlement Estates from virgin hillsides, and so long as we have to develop individual sites within these estates as and when they become ready, there will always be a danger of landslides and washouts during periods of very heavy rainfall.

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A cutting face or a filling slope, however well protected, is always liable to slip during heavy rainfall, particularly while under construction or in the first year or two after completion. Ideally, the sites should be left to settle down before proceeding with building development, but the demand for resettlement housing is such that we cannot afford the time to proceed in this manner.

When I replied to a similar question from Mr. CHEUNG Wing-in last November I set out some of the problems with which we are faced at Tsz Wan Shan, and I said that investigations were being carried out with a view to first preventing the formation of underground streams and second the stabilizing of any weak sections of the cutting slopes. It has not been possible to complete all the necessary remedial works during the dry season which is now coming to an end, and the possibility of further landslides cannot be ignored.

4. Three blocks at Tsz Wan Shan are sited close to the area where further slips could occur; these three blocks are still under construction, and the first of them is expected to be completed in May of this year. However, neither this block nor the other two blocks which are scheduled for completion later in the year will be handed over to the Resettlement Department for occupation until we are completely satisfied with the remedial works.

MRS. ELLIOTT:-Mr. Chairman, I understand that Tsz Wan Shan stood up very well to the test last night, but may I ask whether gangs would have been available if there had been an emergency last night?

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