PM Lee plants trees with residents at annual event
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong joined some 1,500 Ang Mo Kio GRC and Sengkang West SMC residents yesterday at an annual tree planting event where new facilities for the neighbourhood were also unveiled.
Mr Lee and his fellow Ang Mo Kio GRC MPs - Dr Koh Poh Koon, Mr Ang Hin Kee and Mr Gan Thiam Poh - as well as Sengkang West MP Lam Pin Min planted seven Agathis borneensis trees, commonly known as Borneo kauri or Malayan kauri, in front of Block 405A Fernvale Lane in Sengkang.
The event also featured a family carnival with game booths and performances.
Mr Lee unveiled a new sheltered linkway that will allow residents of the Fern Spring and Fern View estates bounded by Fernvale Lane and Fernvale Road to access the nearby bus stop along Yio Chu Kang Road.
It links the third storey of the multi-storey carpark at Block 404 Fernvale Lane to the bus stop.
Mr Gan, who oversees the Sengkang South division, said the linkway project was a community initiative mooted last year by grassroots leaders, who raised about $388,000 to build it. It was completed last week.
As most of the housing blocks are built on a slope, residents used to have to walk up a 40-step staircase from the ground level of the carpark to reach the top of the slope, where the bus stop is located.
With the linkway, they can just take the lift to the third storey of the adjacent carpark and get to the bus stop without climbing the stairs.
"This is part of plans to make the neighbourhood more accessible for elderly residents and families with young children in prams," said Mr Gan.
Former garment factory worker Teng Mei Foong, 65, is glad to see the new linkway.
"Walking up the stairs is very tiring for older people and residents have been complaining about this for the past four years or so," she said.
Over at Spottiswoode Park, Second Minister for Finance and Education Indranee Rajah, an MP for Tanjong Pagar GRC, planted a coconut tree at the open space behind the multi-storey car park at Block 108 at an event organised by the Tanjong Pagar Spottiswoode Park Residents' Committee.
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