Letter to the Editor: Poor maintenance of public area, park benches broken, upgrade delayed 3 years, town council still says wait

Dear Editor,

I have lived in Woodlands for the last 5 years and did not have too many problems with the Marsiling Yew Tee town council as things got rectified and looked into promptly.

Sadly, we got a new property executive and a new MP running the show, and things got bad.

The benches at the little park beside Block 409 are broken, but not beyond repair. I wrote to the town council and to the MP on Nov 12 but did not get a reply.

A second letter was sent by me to them on Nov 23, and a reply came from the MP, and then later the town council also replied.

In short, the town council said the replacement of the benches is part of the Neighbourhood Renewal Programme scope of works at the precinct, which simply means that we have to wait for their schedule.

By the way, the neighbourhood renewal programme was delayed for 3 years. The first contractor went bust, and then it took more time to find a new contractor, followed by problems that arose with COVID.

I guess our broken benches will have to wait indefinitely, thus inconveniencing residents. The town council could have the benches temporarily repaired or ask the contractor to install the new benches first.

Instead, the town council simply wrote and stated that we have to wait for the long-delayed upgrading programme to take its course. Nothing further was heard from the MP.

This is the sad state of affairs here.

Cheers
Christopher Bong

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of The Independent Singapore. /TISG