Annual report on Northern Rhodesia / Colonial Office.

  • Great Britain. Colonial Office.
Date:
[1961]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report on Northern Rhodesia / Colonial Office. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    84/158 (page 74)
    There are now 26 approved zoning or planning schemes for munici¬ palities and larger townships and 24 approved layouts or outline plans for smaller townships. The Town Planning Board continued to guide development and inspect draft planning under the existing Town Planning Ordinance but will disappear under the new Ordinance when development will be controlled by planning authorities or the Minister for Land and Natural Resources. The two Africans appointed for training with a view to becoming qualified professional officers have both gone to universities to study for planning degrees and a further two have been recruited for a similar purpose. LANDS The distribution of land in the Territory at the end of 1961 was as follows: Crown lands Freehold ...... Leasehold ...... Township areas ..... Forest Reserves and Protected Forest Areas Tribal occupation ..... Inundated areas (water) .... Unalienated ...... Total Crown land .... Other lands (restricted primarily to African occupation) Barotseland ...... Native Reserves ..... Native Trust land .... Total other lands .... Total area of Territory . Acres 3,594,800 2,175,000 189,800 2,634,300 423,500 375,000 2,332,600 31,231,000 35,656,000 107,364,000 Acres 11,725,000* 174,251,000 185,976,000 The continued political uncertainty and the reluctance of finance houses and building societies to relax the borrowing restrictions imposed by them during 1960, were major contributory factors in reducing the alienation of Crown land in 1961 to the lowest figure for the past 10 years. A total of 403 leases of Crown land were issued in 1961 compared with 566 in 1960. The biggest reduction was in the number of head leases to municipal councils; only 54 head leases were issued in 1961 compared with 176 in 1960. However, there was a slight increase in the number of leases of urban Crown land issued direct to individual lessees; 220 in 1961 compared with 203 in 1960. There was also a decrease in alienations of agricultural holdings and 29 holdings covering an area of 84,759 acres were leased compared with 48 holdings covering 95,532 acres during the previous year. Eighty-five applications for conversion of township proper¬ ties from leasehold to freehold tenure were approved during the year and there are now six local authority areas in which the conversion scheme has been applied.