ENG-1966 — Page 182

LAND AND HOUSING

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are higher. The rents include rates and are subject to annual review. Some shop spaces are used by government departments and private welfare organizations as schools, clinics or nurseries. Even the rooftops in Mark I and II blocks are put to use, most of them having been allocated to voluntary agencies who operate schools or children's clubs under the guidance of the Education or Social Welfare Departments. In some of the Mark III blocks the top floors, suitably modified, are used for schools, while in estates incorporating Mark IV buildings separate six-storey buildings (each with 24 classrooms) are provided for school accommodation. There are community centres in some estates.

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Provision is also made for the small factories which are often found operating in squatter areas. To enable those resettled from such factories to continue earning a livelihood, multi-storey resettle- ment factory blocks have been built. With the passage of time it has also become necessary to recover, for more intensive develop- ment, land formerly occupied by factories on annual permits. These undertakings are generally more substantial than 'squatter' factories and workshops but when their permits are cancelled the owners often have difficulty in finding alternative accommodation. It has therefore been the practice for some years to offer resettlement also to the operators of such concerns when their permits are cancelled to enable the land which they occupy to be developed. Because of the need to use a simple design in order to keep con- struction costs and therefore rents as low as possible, a number of trades cannot be accommodated'in the multi-storey factory blocks and consequently some factories can be resettled only if the owners are willing to change their trades.

The first factory blocks, dating from 1957, are five storeys in height and provide industrial working space in units of 198 square feet. A later version provides units of 256 square feet, an arrangement repeated in the latest blocks of seven storeys. At the end of the year there were 22 resettlement flatted factories, containing a total of 1,906,518 square feet of net working space, mostly situated in or near existing resettlement estates. Rents are calculated to provide for administration costs and a return on capital, including an element for the value of the land, within 21 years at 5 per cent per annum compound interest. These rents, per square foot per month,