In Dec 2017, Marsiling Mall – along Woodlands St 12 – will be home to a newly built hawker centre, while the one currently at Blk 4A Woodlands Centre Rd ceases operations. Residents will be able to look forward to 70 cooked food stalls, each double the size of the current stalls, and over 1,000 seats, offering affordable hawker fare to residents at Woodlands.
In March this year, NEA announced that it will progressively roll out productivity initiatives at our hawker centres. These initiatives include integrated tray return systems with centralised dishwashing (CDW) services in existing hawker centres over the next few years. Marsiling Mall Hawker Centre is one of these hawker centres, with the intention of reducing the hawkers’ workload and ensuring a steady supply of clean crockery even during peak hours, which could also help with the overall business of the hawker centre. While there could be some initial cost increases, NEA will co-fund stallholders up to 70% of the costs for the first two years and stallholders will only have to pay according to the amount of crockery and cutlery they need each day.
To allow for a faster turn-around of tables, Marsilig Mall will also have an automated tray return system where spatrons return used crockery to tray return stations allowing the cleaners to focus on table-cleaning. NEA is also providing a 50% subsidy of the increase in table-cleaning fees from Dec 2017 to May 2018 to support the stallholders. Such measures will not only improve productivity but also address manpower constraints and their associated costs. These initiatives are part of our efforts to ensure the sustainability and viability of the hawker trade.
Source: FB post by National Environment Agency (NEA)