ENG-1958 — Page 276

PUBLIC UTILITIES AND PUBLIC WORKS

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Sai Yee Street, Kowloon, and Whitfield Street, Hong Kong, for the provision of officers' quarters, garages and scavenging depots. A private architect was also engaged on drawings for a new park and open-air swimming pool at Kowloon Tsai.

The construction of a new nine-storey building at North Point for the Government Stores Department was nearing completion at the end of the year. The building will provide furniture work- shops and storage space on the lower floors, offices on the top floor, and a staff canteen on the roof. A contract was let for the demolition of Buxey Lodge Government hostel and working drawings were completed for the erection on this site of sixty flats for civil servants. Work was also carried out on numerous other small projects and the large annual-programme of main- tenance of Government buildings continued throughout the year.

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 enlarging 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 outfalls. In several cases pump- houses have had to be installed to raise the sewage in the inter- cepting sewers when gravity flow was impossible. The first project covering the Yau Ma Tei area of the Kowloon peninsula is now in operation, whilst one on the eastern side of the Kowloon peninsula is virtually complete except for the necessary screening plant. A start has also been made on the intercepting sewers required for 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 ten feet or more wide and almost square in section. With the tremendous increase in both vehicular and pedestrian traffic it became essential for such obstructions to be removed. During the