The Reform Party’s Five-Year Plan for West Coast GRC

Rejuvenate, Revitalise and Re-integrate

The Reform Party has an ambitious vision for what it wants to achieve for the people of West Coast GRC.

We will achieve this vision through the formation of a partner agency, the Reform Committee, which will work in parallel with the current Residents Committee. The Reform Committee will comprise only local residents, from all walks of life who come from diverse backgrounds. This Reform Committee will rejuvenate, revitalize and re-integrate West Coast GRC in the way residents want to see it. We will return to West Coast residents the power to shape their own community.

We will provide our local people with a greater opportunity to have their views heard and to directly contribute to the decisions via the Reform Committee. We will conduct regular interviews and surveys to get resident’s views. We will continue our innovative use of new media so that residents can directly shape the way services are provided and more easily access information on Council Services.

The Reform Committee will agree priorities with its partners to help it reach its vision. These priorities will focus on:

• Building strong cohesive local communities
• Enhancing intergenerational ties
• Tackling issues of poverty and health and unemployment
• Improving performance in estate management
• Enhancing the infrastructure
• Providing more recreational and cultural facilities
• Providing more local markets
• Creating a greener, cleaner environment
• Improving traffic links and accessibility and dealing with congestion due to poor planning decisions
• Install disabled and mobility challenged access across the West Coast area starting with public buildings and facilities
• Help people achieve their potential through sport, art and being a volunteer

The Reform Committee has several innovative proposals for, raising educational attainment, for helping residents find

jobs and making it easier for parents to work by providing alternative childcare and for helping residents with legal and financial problems. These ideas are based on the proven success of the Reform Party pro-bono legal clinic and innovative fund raising activities.

Town Council and Residents’ Committee Management

We aim to reduce the dependency of the Town Council on foreign workers. We want to return the management and service jobs to our local residents, so that they can play an active part in managing and maintaining their own community.

The town council will be managed with the overall aim of assessing excellence from the residents’ perspective.

The Residents’ Committee cannot be run by people who are not familiar with the ground and we will partner it with the Reform Committee as outlined above.

Fiscal Management

Investment and Usage of Funds:

We will continue to invest the Town Council funds prudently in accordance with the Town Councils Act, Town Councils Financial Rules and guidelines issued by the Ministry of National Development. At the same time, we want to employ the funds in more effective ways which will translate into real benefits for the residents of West Coast GRC.

Service and Conservancy Charges:

It has come to our attention that despite paying monthly service and conservancy charges, many residents are not seeing any general improvement in the daily maintenance and cleanliness of their neighbourhoods. We will ensure that the funds collected from these charges are channeled appropriately into improving the cleanliness and maintenance of the estates.

Community Fund:

We aim to establish a separate Community Fund to help residents who face financial hardship and the elderly and destitute residents. Monies for the Community Fund will be sourced through organized fund-raising

community events, donations etc. The funds will be channeled to specialized services for the named groups of residents, such as subsidized or specialized bus services to improve their accessibility, and needy residents who are facing impending evictions from the HDB rental homes.

Estate Improvement

During our walkabouts, we noticed that the different wards have been managed in an unbalanced way. While there is an abundance of amenities in certain areas, there are still residential areas which face a serious lack of facilities, and are devoid of any form of community life.

Wet Markets/Hawker Centres/Shops:

Food centres, markets and shops will be re-located strategically, as there is an abundance of such amenities in certain areas but hardly any in other areas. We want to provide convenience to all residents, especially those who have to travel to get to the main food centres.

We will conduct an enquiry into the competition present in the food industry. We want to find out why wet markets are disappearing and more expensive hypermarkets are being built in their place (or in some areas, none at all)?

We will provide more affordable rental to potential stall holders so that these savings can be passed on to consumers.

Sports Facilities:

There are plenty of neighbourhoods which still do not have enough community facilities for their enjoyment. We believe that building more sports facilities such as outdoor basketball courts, indoor sports complexes and playgrounds will enhance the sense of community in the estates. (Please refer to the table below for specific requirements in each ward.)

Parking Spaces:

We aim to work with HDB to reduce the season parking charges for HDB carparks. We believe that this will encourage HDB residents to park in their allocated season parking lots, rather than resorting to parking in private estates, which causes a great inconvenience to private property home owners.

We also seek to work with HDB to remove parking charges on Sundays and Public Holidays that are present in HDB carparks. The presence of parking charges on these days does not sit well with the policy of promoting inter-generational bonding, as families (immediate and extended) most frequently gather together on these days and

they should not be made to pay full-day parking charges. This problem is also present in private estates. We will be looking into the parking situations in each estate and implementing solutions to the concerns of residents there.

We will start building multi-storey carparks to increase the number of lots and free up first-storey carpark land for more amenities. This will also reduce traffic congestion.

We also aim to build mechanical carparks which will go towards solving the issue of scarce land for parking. We will need to import this technology from countries (ie. Korea) which use such mechanical carparks as Singapore currently does not have such mechanical carparks.

Alert Alarm Systems:

We want to install Alert Alarm Systems in every HDB rental flat.

Community Services

The following are just some of the services we plan to implement upon election:

After-School Clubs:

We plan to start after-school clubs for children, to ease the burden of parents who work long hours and are unable to provide supervision for their children after school, especially those from lower-income families. We will conduct after-school club sessions in the rooms in the Town Council buildings. Children may proceed there after school while

 they wait for their parents to return: there will be homework services and supervision available, multi-media services and educational activities which children can engage in. (This concept is modeled after the After-School Clubs in England.)

Senior Activity Centres:

We will set up more day centres and Senior Activity Centres (SAC) for the elderly. These centres are run by Voluntary Welfare Organizations (VWOs) which have the specialized skills and resources to take care of the elderly, but will be supported by funds from the Town Council.

Town Council Initiatives:

We plan to set up an information service centre operating extended hours to provide residents with referral and information services, so that residents can be directed to the proper bodies with their concerns.

In addition, we plan to provide the following services:

• Legal Clinics – To provide residents with free legal advice from pro-bono lawyers, as well as to help them draft letters of feedback/concern.
• C/V & Networking Clinics – To provide residents with employment-related services, such as editing and improving C/Vs, job information, networking information etc.

Bridging the Gap Between the Foreign & Local Community:

With the high population of foreign workers living in the West Coast GRC, it is essential that they are able to integrate into the local community seamlessly, without compromising the quality of life of local residents. We will enlist the

 help of the local residents who have to live alongside the foreign workers in their community in coming up with an action plan for such integration, as they will be the ones in the best position to know what needs to be done.

Transport

There is a lack of bus routes that run directly from Jurong and West Coast to Upper Bukit Timah and Bukit Timah Road. We want to ensure that residents from both areas are served with a more convenient and direct bus service

between each other.

There are also no night-riders serving the Clementi/West Coast area. We will start the operation of night riders so that residents will have a cheaper form of transport home after hours.

We aim to provide subsidized bus services and specialized bus services to the elderly and people with disabilities who face the most inconvenience getting around. These bus services will provide direct routes which current bus services do not ply, and service stops which are more convenient for the elderly and people with disabilities to board/alight at.

Meet-the-People Sessions

The current Meet-the-People Sessions are as follows:

• Pioneer Division: Every Monday, 7 pm
• Boon Lay Division: Every Monday, 7.30 pm
• Clementi Division: Every Monday, 8 pm
• Telok Blangah Division: (a) Every first and third Wednesdays, 8 pm; (b) Every Wednesday, 8 pm
• Ayer Rajah Division: (a) Every first, third and fifth Mondays, 7.30 pm; (b) Every second and fourth Mondays, 7.30 pm.

Before entering GE2011, the Reform Party candidates all signed pledges to fully commit themselves to meet-the-people sessions and local initiatives. We want to increase the frequency of MPS sessions to ensure that the concerns of the residents are adequately addressed. We will also extend the hours of these sessions to cater to the residents who work late hours.

A Small Sample of Proposals for Reform by Ward

Ward	Tasks Ahead
Boon Lay	The population of foreign workers in this area is high. Many of them use bicycles as a means of transport, which poses a road safety hazard for pedestrians and drivers alike. We will build cycling lanes around the estate to remove the safety hazard. We will help the foreign workers integrate into the local community. Amenities There is an ageing population in Boon Lay, and we want to ensure that they are not left out because of increasing development and industrialization of the estate. We will ensure that official planting plots are accessible to all, and we will build more planting plots. We will create a multi-generational environment in Boon Lay to attract young families here. We will build more amenities such as playgrounds, community centres, parks etc. We will build more hawker centres and wet markets to enable the lower-income families to enjoy cheaper necessities. Cleanliness Residents have complained of a litter problem in the area due to insufficient bins. We will ensure that there are sufficient bins around the area. The current cleaning contractors are poorly managed. We will engage more efficient cleaning contractors, and employ their services more frequently.
Clementi	Residents have complained of poor maintenance of the blocks. We will employ more cleaning contractors to maintain the cleanliness of the estates and ensure their upkeep. The residents of 5-room flats at Clementi Ave 5 have expressed discontent at the problems they are facing in the area which are not being attended to. The newly built drains have a poor drainage system which needs to be fixed (eg. At Block 613 Clementi West St 1) SERS scheme for blocks 321,322,333. Why should residents be forced out of their homes? The cost of replacement flats is high – almost $50,000 extra. Unnecessary parking changes Weekends and public holidays are the times when children visit their elderly parents and families get together. The parking charges that are still applicable on these occasions should be removed at the carparks around the blocks. Traffic congestion There is unnecessary traffic congestion at the roads caused by ill-timed traffic lights. We will work with the SLA to fix such traffic lights.
Dover/Ayer Rajah	Residents have complained of the scarcity of basic neighbourhood amenities. For instance, the youth want to see basketball and badminton courts in the estate. We will build more sports facilities for the community. We will re-build the wet market that used to be there, as many residents have been waiting for a new one since the old one was demolished. We will expand the size or number of coffee shops.
Telok Blangah	Problems with new MRT at Telok Blangah: There is an ageing population at Telok Blangah, yet the facilities at the MRT station do not cater to their needs. What the elderly and the people with disabilities need are lifts. We will work with SMRT to ensure that there is greater accessibility. Lack of Multi-Purpose Halls/Pavilions: Residents have no place to conduct weddings or mass events near their units. Original masterplan included building 2 multi-purpose halls but these have still not been built now. We will build a wet market in the area.
West Coast	The Pandan Swimming Complex has not been in use for the past 10 years. We do not like to see such facilities fall into ruin for such a long period of time. We will ensure that the residents around the area will get to enjoy the use of the swimming complex as soon as possible. The designated areas for the Chinese community to conduct their ancestral worship will be shifted further away from the residential blocks so that the smoke and ashes do not affect the residents, as is the case now. Pandan Reservoir needs to be better maintained. SERS scheme for single-digit blocks at Teban Gardens: These blocks have been recently upgraded, and the residents are unhappy about being forced to move when there is nothing wrong with the blocks.