ENG-1963 — Page 49

REVIEW

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were set up in Wong Nei Chung and at Morrison Hill, while the military established cantonments at West Point and Stanley and a fort on Kellett Island. Plans of the City of Victoria dated 1850 show it laid out and developed from West Point to Morrison Hill and beyond, and within a few years of taking over Kowloon a development plan had been prepared showing lines of proposed roads.

Throughout the history of the Colony down to the present day the tradition has been to exercise whatever planning control was considered necessary and practicable through the administration of the land. It was not until 1935 that a separate town planning organization was established and in 1939 the Town Planning Ordinance was passed. In 1948 Sir Patrick Abercrombie, a leading British architect and town planner, visited the Colony and pro- duced a preliminary planning report but this, unfortunately, was overrun by events arising from disturbances in China. The next development was the establishment of the present planning division in the Crown Lands and Survey Office, thus continuing the associa- tion of planning with land. Most of the urbanised parts of the Colony are now covered by development plans prepared by the planning division and also, generally in the newly expanding areas, by statutory plans prepared by the Town Planning Board, the most recent being that of the new industrial township of Tsuen Wan, approved in 1963 and designed to accommodate over one million persons by the late 1970's. In 1962 the Government authorized the preparation of a Colony Outline Plan with a view to providing the framework for the long term development of the Colony to meet the 'rapidly increasing population'-much the same terms of reference as were given to the first planning committee appointed by Sir Henry Pottinger 120 years earlier.

The problem facing the planners has not changed materially over the years it has been and still is one of a search for land and the provision of water, communications and other services necessary for its development. In 1957 consultant engineers were engaged to examine the relative merits of reclamation at a number of localities in the New Territories including Tai Po, Sha Tin, Kwai Chung, Junk Bay and Castle Peak. In 1960 the Government decided to proceed with the scheme at Kwai Chung between Tsuen Wan and Kowloon, and work is now well in hand. Junk Bay has