22 Oct 2012 Ms Grace Fu Second Minister for the Environment And

Date Published: 22 Oct 2012 Ms Grace Fu Second Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Dr Teo Ho Pin Mayor for North West District Mr Liang Eng Hwa MP for Holland-Bukit Timah GRC Mr Theodore Chan President of Singapore Institute of Architects (SIA) Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen This is a special occasion and the Bukit Panjang Hawker Centre is special, not only because Dr Teo has been championing this for so many years, but because it is the first new hawker centre that we are going to build since 1985. In 1985, most of us in this room were still studying and I think even people like Ashwin and I were just graduating from university as fresh doctors and fresh architects. So it was a very long time. 2 In fact if you go further back, between the 1960s to the mid-1980s, the government was clearing street hawkers because of hygiene reasons and that is why hawker centres were built, so that they will have clean water to be able to wash their crockery and the food would be safe for human consumption. That was the real reason why hawker centres started. 3 Over time, our hawker centres evolved. They became a communal area; it became something uniquely Singaporean; it became a way of life for us. The availability of cheap but very good food became something that we could all identify with and indeed, even our foreign guests and tourists would often make a beeline for hawker centres. 4 Since 1985, there have been many calls for hawker centres. And I am glad that sometime in October last year, we finally arrived at the decision to restart this programme. But this is not just a “restart”. In fact, if you look at the title of today’s session, it is “rethinking” hawker centres. And in this regard, I wanted to say thank you to some key stakeholders who made a difference to this rethinking process. 5 First, I remember having breakfast with Ashwin in a hawker centre in West Coast and he was one key person who said, “Look, now that you have decided to build hawker centres again, do not just repeat the old designs. Let us look for new, interesting, green, pleasant designs which are local, which reflect us and which will be architecturally, something we can be proud of.” Of course my first question to him was, “Are you sure that can be done without spending a lot of money?” And he said, “It can be done, leave it to the ingenuity of the architects.” So Ashwin, thank you, for he was at that time, the President of the Singapore Institute of Architects (SIA) and we find that now, we have the collective wisdom of some of the best architects in Singapore focused on rethinking and redesigning hawker centres. 6 The other point was that we wanted to make sure hawker centres continued to remain accessible and affordable to all Singaporeans. That means cost was always an issue. In the previous 26 years, because the number of hawker centres was in fact gradually shrinking with time, we all know that rentals were beginning to rise. And many hawkers, even patrons, used to complain to us about that. With Ms Grace Fu in the Ministry, I am glad to say that we have been able to reset our policies on rentals. So as you all know, today we have no reserve rents. We have also changed some of the rules so that whoever bids for a place in hawker centres, is not doing real estate development but is truly concentrating on the business of providing good and cheap food. So over the past few months since the new policies have been in place, our rentals have stabilised and in fact there have been good signs that rentals have been coming down. 7 The third thing is that we want our hawker centres to not just be a commercial place but to be part of the community, which means that it is a social infrastructure. It is a place where all of us came come in shorts, tee-shirts, jackets, long-sleeved shirts and ties, or even in a cast and wheelchair, it does not matter. All of us have a right to be there and we can all relax. 8 And there is the other point we also wanted to emphasise for this rebranded and redesigned hawker centres, which is that it must represent an opportunity for us to be more socially gracious. That is why the Singapore Kindness Movement has said that even as we restart this programme, let us make it another opportunity to improve the way we behave, the way we relate, the way we consider each other and to be kinder to each other. So even the example of returning trays after we eat is not just about cleaning and the wages cleaners will have to get but it is really about showing consideration for each other, about the type of society that we want to be. 9 Finally let me make some points about cleaners’ wages. Yesterday, you may have read that Ms Grace Fu announced that the Government would be supporting the recommendations of the Tripartite Cluster for Cleaners on improving the working conditions for cleaners. Some of you may also be aware that over the last few months, there has been talk about the contracts for cleaning going up because cleaners have to be paid a better wage. I hope you will all agree with me that our cleaners do deserve a better wage. They do deserve to be better trained, better equipped, better able to enhance their productivity as they go about doing their jobs. And we all have to be prepared to do our bit and if need be, pay a little bit more so that our environment will be cleaner and more importantly, that our cleaners will get a better deal. 10 So the net result of all this is that over the next five years, from now until 2017 - we have already announced seven new hawker centres and the first is of course Bukit Panjang. We have decided that we will be building another three new ones in Hougang, Sengkang and Sembawang. So there will be a total of 10 that will be built by 2017. Initially when I announced it, I said 10 in 10 years. But now my staff are so keen to do more, they said they will try to do it by 2017. We will continue to look for other opportunities to add even more if possible. 11 Let me finally come to this point on the design competition. In the past 10 years that I have been involved, if you think about the bridges – Henderson Waves, the bridge at HortPark, the Helical Bridge – the Pinnacle@Duxton and now this example, I am very glad that the winner for this competition is a local firm. I believe it is a small firm, and I believe the architect is in his mid-40s, so it is a young firm. The firm that has won it is called SQFT Architects and I want to congratulate you for this wonderful design[1]. I believe we are going to get them to come up later to show their design but I have seen the artist’s impression of it and it is something which we will all be proud of and I am sure it will become a new icon of Bukit Panjang Town. 12 So thank you all very much for making this possible. Watch this space -there will be many more developments in the hawker centre space. This is not just a hawker centre but is really an opportunity for us to rethink our future, rethink the way we relate to each other and rethink the way we create icons that reflect us authentically as Singaporeans. 13 Thank you all very much. [1] The press release on the winning design for the new Bukit Panjang Hawker Centre can be found on NEA’s website..

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