ENG-1957 — Page 305

PUBLIC UTILITIES AND PUBLIC WORKS

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the Government stores at North Point, with a nine-storey building and additional workshops; the construction at Farm Road, Kowloon, of a seven-storey block of offices for the Public Works Department and other departments, including a post office and adjacent depots for the Roads Office and Drainage Office; designs for the second stage of the develop- ment of the Public Works Department Electrical and Mechanical Workshops site at Caroline Hill; a start on the construction of the final stage of the Central Government Offices; completion of 40 flats for civil servants at Nairn House, Argyle Street; and a market at San Hui for the District Administration, New Territories.

Work on the new Airport is described at pages 273, 274 of Chapter 15.

Drainage. Water-borne sewage systems are provided in nearly all built-up areas, including the larger towns in the New Territories. As reconstruction of old buildings and the erection of large new blocks of flats continue, the number of new connexions made is steadily increasing. Many of the older sewers are thus becoming loaded beyond their designed capacity, and the work of re-laying and eñlarging them is going steadily forward. Major schemes have also been approved for the provision of intercepting sewers, which will abolish the numerous outfalls into the harbour and bring the sewage to selected sites, where it will be chemically treated and discharged through submarine out- falls. The first project covering the Yau Ma Tei area of the Kowloon peninsula has been virtually completed, while a start has been made on both the intercepting sewers required for the eastern side of the Kowloon peninsula and the Wan Chai area.

Surface water, draining from the hills through built-up areas, was originally led to the sea through large open- trained channels, known locally as nullahs, which passed down the centre of roads, with bridges at road intersections. These nullahs were frequently 10 feet or more wide and