HEAVY VEHICLE PARKING LOTS IN PUNGGOL AND SENGKANG

Column: 228

HEAVY VEHICLE PARKING LOTS IN PUNGGOL AND SENGKANG: 20.

Miss Penny Low asked the Minister for National Development (a) whether his Ministry will consider building heavy vehicle parking lots in Punggol and Sengkang to cater to increased demand; and (b) if not, whether there are plans to tackle the lack of such lots in Punggol and Sengkang.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for National Development (Dr Mohamad Maliki Bin Osman) (for the Minister for National Development): Mr Speaker, Sir, as a general principle, heavy vehicles should not be parked at housing estates as they pose traffic hazard and noise and smoke nuisance to residents. These vehicles have to be parked at designated heavy vehicle parks located at the fringe of the housing estates or near to industrial areas.

Nonetheless, my Ministry has provided a temporary heavy vehicle park at Anchorvale Crescent to meet some of the needs of residents in Sengkang and Punggol. The temporary heavy vehicle park with close to 300 parking lots was completed in November 2006. It is now fully occupied and there are about 60 residents waiting for vacancies. While it is understandable that heavy vehicle drivers prefer to park near their

Column: 229

residences, we need to balance this against the disamenity and nuisance that would be created for the majority of the residents if too many heavy vehicles are allowed to park in or near residential estates. It is not sustainable to keep building more heavy vehicle parks in or near HDB estates to cater to increased demand.

There is presently an island-wide supply of more than 41,000 parking lots to meet the overnight parking needs of 30,899 registered heavy vehicles. Residents of Sengkang and Punggol who are unable to secure heavy vehicle parking lots at Anchorvale Crescent can or would have already secured parking lots at their workplaces like factories and at designated parking places outside HDB estates. They can continue to park at these locations where heavy vehicles are supposed to be parked in the first place.

Miss Penny Low (Pasir Ris-Punggol): Sir, does the Parliamentary Secretary recognise that there has been quite a bit of changes in terms of the ownership of these vehicles – shifting from usually that of the company to the owners who now own the vehicles and rent or lease them out to the companies which require them? Also, many of these vehicles need to be started up early in the morning or come back very late at night and there is often no public transport available at that point in time. Therefore, it is going to be very difficult to require them to either fork out extra amount of money from their very meagre income to foot the taxi fares at those times or to park very far away and thereby –

Mr Speaker: There is not very much time left, Miss Low.

Miss Penny Low: I will round it up. Therefore, it makes it extremely inconvenient or even inaccessible for them to even get to work.

Column: 230

Mr Speaker: Your reply within one minute, Dr Maliki.

Dr Mohamad Maliki Bin Osman: Sir, as mentioned earlier, regardless of ownership, I think we have to also bear in mind the disamenity created by heavy vehicles. The principles and philosophy behind it are that heavy vehicles should not be allowed to park in housing estates. They should not be used as personal transport and drivers should park at places designated outside of HDB housing estates.

3.00 pm

Mr Speaker: Order. End of Question Time.

[ Pursuant to Standing Order No. 22(3), Written Answers to Question Nos. 21, 23 and 24 on the Order Paper are reproduced in the Appendix*. Question No. 22 has been postponed to a date to be fixed .]

*Cols. 291-296