Photo Credit: Alicesg Blog
If you go around Punggol/Sengkang nowadays, it is evident that the town is changing. Unfortunately, it is changing to become another cookie-cutter HDB town. It’s no longer special, as it was just a few years ago.
Now, the town is getting more crowded, not only with people but also with buildings. Even in the parks, such as along Waterway Park, green spaces are being decimated as we speak.
Near our home, there is a running track which was once flanked by greenery – plants, shrubs, trees. Jogging along the track was always pleasant as the greenery keeps the sun out and the air cool.
Now, work has begun on the construction of more HDB flats, all the way up to the track and the waterway.
Very soon, that little greenery will be obliterated and, like so many other parts of Punggol and Sengkang, be no more.
There is a green knoll near my place too, and we jog along and past it every other day. It is where at times children would play, fly kites or adults would try out their drones. It is one of the rare open green spaces here.
About a year ago, they plonked a kindergarten right in the middle of it.
Little kids will now have to cross the road, including a major junction, to get to the kindergarten which is located in the park.
Why on earth would anyone set a kindergarten in such a place?
It is now near completion and soon human traffic in that part of the park will increase.
But that is not the end of it. The other half of the knoll now sees construction work starting. What are they building? I don’t know. Maybe I will go ask the workers when I next go running there.
And now it gets even worse – they have just announced that they will build a “Digital District” in Punggol, at another wide open field just opposite of Coney Island.
More buildings.
What horror.
Sengkang is no longer a green town like it was before.
It is another concrete jungle, no different from other parts of Singapore.
Sometimes, I wonder why we keep building and building, erasing the little green spaces we have, where our kids could go play.
Who are the people behind such town planning? Where do these people live? How come they do not know how precious these green spaces are to residents?
Sigh.
Source: FB post by Andrew Loh