ENG-1971 — Page 214

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PUBLIC WORKS AND UTILITIES

and will be one of the largest in the world. A report was completed on the possibilities of even larger desalters for the end of the decade, operating conjointly with plant for the production of electricity.

Along with these plans for new and different sources of water, work continued on new service reservoirs, pumping stations and pipelines to provide for growing demand in existing and new areas of development.

At Castle Peak a fully filtered supply system for up to six million gallons a day was completed, and the capacity of the supply system for the nearby township of Yuen Long was increased from two to four million gallons a day. In the eastern New Territories, a new filtered water supply of up to 1.3 million gallons a day was completed for the Sai Kung area, where previously-supplies were either non- existent or from simple stream intakes.-In other parts of the New Territories, improvements were made in the supply system feeding Cheung Chau Island, and work was in hand on improving supplies to the islands of Kat O and Tsing Yi and to the Lantau townships of Tai O and Mui Wo.

BUILDINGS

Building costs continued to rise during 1971 but not as sharply as during the latter half of 1969 and in 1970. It is estimated that the general rise in costs over the year was about 28 per cent. Material prices levelled off during the second quarter of the year and although fairly small fluctuations were noticeable, wage rates (with minor exceptions) continued to increase steadily from two to six per cent per month with a consequent rise in building costs. The cause of these wage increases has been attributed to the continued resurgence of private building in Hong Kong and a general shortage of skilled labour in the industry.

Due to difficulties in obtaining sufficient experienced labour and the continued rise in wages (which in turn seems to have led to reduced productivity on site) the construction of many government buildings was somewhat slower than programmed and the construc- tion and maintenance of new and existing buildings for HBM Depart- ment of the Environment suffered in the same way. Private architects, quantity surveyors and consultants continued to assist the Public Works Department in implementing the public building programme.

During the year expenditure on resettlement estates and associated buildings amounted to approximately $42 million; on government low-cost housing $59.21 million; and on all other projects $102.93 million.