ENG-1968 — Page 29

PROGRESS

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the Colony, there will be many similar achievements completed in years soon to come.

Providing homes at low rentals for families in the lower income groups continued to be one of the Government's proudest achieve- ments. By the end of 1968 it was estimated that about 1,100,000 people were in resettlement estates, 170,000 in government low- cost housing and 125,000 had been housed by the Hong Kong Housing Authority and the Hong Kong Housing Society. Very few, if any, communities of this size in the whole free world can match a record of well over one third of the total population in housing built from public funds. There will be more to come and at improved standards. The year saw certain problems in housing come more to the fore. It is no longer a matter of simply producing the maximum amount of accommodation. Accessibility, greater room for expanding families, and the provision of separate water supplies and toilet facilities for each home are assuming greater importance. Overcrowding has to be relieved in the older resettle- ment estates. With this in mind, measures were studied for convert- ing the earliest resettlement buildings to the improved standards of the later designs. With the filling up of the busiest parts of Hong Kong and Kowloon it was necessary to look further afield for housing sites. People began to show more reluctance towards moving away from central areas even it if did mean better accom- modation. Nevertheless, the industrial suburb of Kwun Tong continued to fill up and development work at Kwai Chung and Castle Peak proceeded.

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One of the most striking achievements of the year in housing was the opening of the Housing Authority's new Wah Fu estate near Aberdeen on Hong Kong Island. This low-cost housing complex with all its finely planned amenities will eventually house about 54,000 people. Meanwhile in the private sector, large new estates at Shau Kei Wan on Hong Kong Island and at Lai Chi Kok in New Kowloon received their first occupants during the year.

Further progress was made in overcoming Hong Kong's consid- erable transport and traffic difficulties, which stem basically from established, central, high-density population coupled with the inevitable though gradual wider dispersal of people. Road widening,