Hope town council can make better use of conservancy fees and hire skilled workers to maintain greenery

A concerned member of the public wondered if more could be done to maintain the greenery in housing estates after spotting a tree that seemed to be over-pruned.

“I hope the Ang Mo Kio Town Council can make better use of our conservancy fees to hire other companies that are more skilled in maintaining greenery in the estate,” said a Facebook page Complaint Singapore member on Friday (Aug 12).

According to the group member, the trees were pruned by Toh Chin Leong Construction Pte Ltd (TCL), leaving insufficient amounts of foliage.

“Some branches don’t even have any leaves left. Some trees along the carpark do not even need pruning as they already have very little foliage left.”

The concerned individual understood that there could be issues with birds nesting on such trees, “but I have seen other companies pruning trees with at least one-third of foliage left, and birds can’t nest well on it.”

“The trees can reduce heat reaching the building and cut down electrical bills for air conditioning in this climate of global warming,” she added.

Netizens commented on the post, highlighting a lack of proper training for such tasks.

“Most of the pruners are foreign talents with zero training. Pointless planting trees only to cut off the leaves that provide shade and release oxygen,” said Facebook user MK Leow.

“I believe it is not the fault of the construction company, but of the town council, as workers only carried out the instructions by TC, who requested to cut very short,” added another netizen.

“Not sure why TC over the past few years fought so aggressively with generally harmless trees, there must be some simple-minded decision from the top.”

Meanwhile, others noted that the trees in their estates were trimmed similarly for safety purposes.

“In my place, Bedok Reservoir road also cut down the trees… for fear of falling, and it was very dangerous. It didn’t take long for them to bloom again. So I think this is a natural thing…they know how to handle big trees…so it’s not really a big problem.”

The Independent Singapore has reached out to the AMK TC for a statement and will update the article accordingly./TISG

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