At long last, after looking at those miles of underdeveloped land between Tuen Mun and Yuen long, it has been decided to develop the area surrounding Hung Shui Kiu which stands athwart the highway between these two towns.
What was shrugged aside as impossible is now the latest white hope. It's about time. It will take time to plan and to overcome the clearance and land acquisition questions.
On the question of land acquisition, some developers, together with some of the village landowners, have suggested a return to the land exchange system which was so successful in overcoming these problems in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and which enabled the development of the new towns to take place with little protest.
The exchange system had its failings. There is no need to repeat them when applied to this new town at Hung Shui Kiu.
I would join with the developers and planners who have suggested a return to this system. Maybe the exchange ratio needs changing and the timing of the development premium payment adjusting (the developers will have to pay a market price and the value of the surrendered land will require settling). However, to obtain the trouble-free surrender of the land required for much-needed housing and other urban needs requires imaginative thinking, otherwise this new town will be stuck in the Town Planning Board and Lands Tribunal and be argued every foot of the way. The years will pass and the hopes of the people for housing will fade into obscurity.
I am always told that things are different now. I understand that, but they were not easy then, in those early years when paddy fields and fishponds and villages were required for the new towns and the land exchange system came to the rescue.