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- 4 -need Government approval for rebuilding their old village housesas long as these are for their own occupation and cases havedemonstrated their blatant disregard of the restrictions placedon NTEH. They often adopt an antagonistic attitude when theconcerned departments attempt to take enforcement actions andpolice assistance is sometimes required.5 Overall Observations and Findings5.1 This Office notes that Lands D had set its priority forlease enforcement according to the policy endorsed by theExecutive Council in 1975 under which a high priority wasaccorded to enforcement against dangerous and obnoxiousindustrial undertakings in residential and non-industrialbuildings. With the gradual transformation of Hong Kong'smainstream industry from manufacturing to service-orientedindustry since 1975, a significant number of local industrialundertakings had been relocated to China. It seems timely, after20 years, for the Administration to revisit the 1975 policy witha view to reassessing the relative priorities for leaseenforcement. If after review, the Administration concedes thatlease enforcement against UBW should be accorded a higherpriority, appropriate resources should then be accorded to thedepartments concerned to more effectively and proactively dealwith the problem. Resource constraints apart, this Office stillmaintains the view expressed in the earlier report on theinvestigation of UBW that there should be a firm commitment anddetermination on the part of the Government to work out apositive plan to tackle the problem.5.2 Currently there is a lack of suitable and effectivemeasures that Lands D can take to deter the violation of therestrictions on the NTEH. This Office considers that the LandsD should be able to administer suitable punitive measures, suchas adopting an equitable penalty scheme, to deter such breaches.Another effective determent may be the registration of theadvisory letter against the property title at the Land Registrar,a practice that should be consistently adopted by all DLOs.5.3 Having reviewed the staffing resources allocated by thedifferent DLOs on lease enforcement in relation to the size andnumber of villages in each district and the extent of the UBWproblem, the overall resources for lease enforcement actions doesappear to be totally inadequate. Proper patrol programmes willbe effective in detecting and controlling the proliferation ofUBW in villages but in view of the scattered locations ofexempted houses and vast area to be covered, such programmes arebound to be resource intensive.5.4 When UBW are detected, there is a need for the