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are not within their reach, they will have to take up some kind of pastime which may be less beneficial to them or even be more harmful to them, or even worse still be harmful to the society, such as drug addicts or hooliganism.

Increased recreational facilities will encourage more people to take interest in healthy recreation. Such an increase in their interest will naturally be followed by further increase in the demand for more facilities. Thus the urge for recreational facilities will always be found to out-grow our progress in the provision.

In fact we can say the demand will always be insatiable; the more we have the more we find that we need to have. Such indeed is a challenge to us all. But it is a challenge we should all welcome and accept as a healthy sign that more and more of our youths are wanting to take up some forms of healthy recreation which will contribute to the good health of the community as a whole.

Practically every progressing city has learned to regret over the short vision of the past in the reservation of open space for development of recreational amenities. Hong Kong, of course, is of no exception. In this field, no one can be complacent of the past achievement.

It is for this reason that constant review in our planning and progress in the implementation of our projects planned for the develop- ment in this field is always timely.

A review is indeed necessary on the general policy which controls the rate of our progress. For what might appear reasonable for having to defer some of our proposed projects in the past may now merit a higher priority treatment in the light of the increased demand.

It may even be necessary to examine all causes of previous delay and obstructions. Some of our previous questions may now call for better answers, namely: to what extent should our bid for more fund required for the development of recreational amenities be considered more competitive than all other claims, to what degree of priority should the Architectural Office in Public Works Department be set to work on the design of our projects and to what preference can we claim for an early clearance of squatters on sites earmarked for parks and play- grounds.

On the delay due to the hindrance in clearance of site, I think the worse squatters come from various Government Departments. Some- how I have a notion that they seem to feel that the most convenient place to squat is to sneak into a site earmarked for playground, and once they have moved in, it will take a long time for them to be cleared or resettled. I suggest that in our review we may propose that a special resettlement department be instituted for clearance of Govern-

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ment squatters now occupying land earmarked for open space and playground. If examples are needed, may I just quote one or two here. Although shortage of site has always been the excuse given for the absence of playground in the Western District and while we used to place our hope that on the completion of the new abattoirs in Kennedy Town, we may demolish the 80 year old buildings and turn the entire premises into a park for the residents in Western District. It now appears that our hope is to be shattered, there has already been an attempt for another Government Department to squat in. One may ask another question "When will the Government squatters be cleared from the site adjacent to the Rodney Block Building which is marked on the plan as Kam Chung Garden?" Again one needs only to observe from one end of Queen's Road to another to spot a number of old, shabby buildings, if we can still call them buildings, now being occupied by various Government Departments. Many of these sites could be developed for recreational centres for buildings for multi- purpose usage.

As to the work of the Architectural Office, one must admit that it has more jobs in hand than the present strength of its staff can cope with. One must also admit that the design for a pleasure ground is a very often time-consuming job. Here a policy review is immenent, and I fully agree with Mr. SALES that a solution could be that more local architects should be assigned to do the jobs. We may also be rewarded by so doing with a bigger variety of less monotonous and more sophisti- cated architecture in our public pleasure grounds, than what can be produced in the same office all the time by the same people no matter how capable they are.

Mr. Chairman, I ask for your indulgence for being long-winded and ask Members to bear with me on just one more point on which I wish to call for Government to review its policy so as to encourage a bigger contribution in the private sectors to the provision of recrea- tional facilities. I suggest that Government consider the possibility of enforcing private developers to provide adequate amenities for their prospective residents. For example, in a multi-storey building, it may be made compulsory for the inclusion of a floor or so, say, a floor in every 10, to be reserved as a playground in addition to the roof. This condition may be included in the crown lease similar to that for reserva- tion of car parks. Perhaps some incentive here is necessary. Such incentive can be in the form an award of additional allowance in the permissible height or volume of the buildings to be developed. I feel very strongly that this suggestion should merit an urgent consideration and an early implementation in view of the rapid development of multi- storey residential buildings.

With these remarks, Mr. Chairman, I am glad to second the motion.