I have settled into Punggol for 2 years now. My salutes and sympathies to the early pioneer settlers of Punggol 21. These folks were probably attracted here by the many promises and visions of a town of the future and have since lived through many inconveniences, and perhaps still do (well, at least I do).
The articles in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punggol_New_Town gives a good concise history of Punggol 21.
First announced on 18 August 1996 by then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, the slow progress of Punggol 21 was then blamed on the Asian economic crisis in 1997 and the financial troubles in 2003. (But, did Singapore goes into a crawl between 1997 and 2005?) Anyway, by the early 2000s, pioneer settlers trickled in (mainly into blocks numbered 1xx along both sides of Punggol Field road). Then, only SBS Transit's Service 82, served the area along Punggol Road. Things got slightly better when the North-East Line opened on 20 June 2003, the current temporary Punggol Bus Interchange five months later and the Punggol LRT Line on 29 January 2005.
While the financial crisis does impact the development of the vision, the pathetic progress of Punggol 21 was flawed from the very beginning. Readers are also encouraged to read the full reply from URA in Oct 2006 to a Ms Joanne in this forum [
http://www.punggol.sg/forum/community_issues/punggol21_development_plans_reply_from_ura-t2416.0.html ] of which I shall comment on point 2 and point 3.
2 Government agencies such as URA, HDB, NParks and LTA have been working together to realise the ideas that were exhibited as part of the Punggol 21 vision in 1996. ..... While HDB has completed around 15,700 flats so far at Punggol since the first HDB block was built there in 2000, Punggol Town is still a relatively young and growing town with a relatively small population.
Punggol Town is today still under-developed, or at least, it still has no heart, no center, no facilities! 4 years after the URA reply, and 10 years since the first HDB block was built, what do we still NOT have? No bank. No post office. No community center. No Cinema. No sport complex. No park. No library. 1 petrol station. 1 small shopping center. (Go and count how many malls Sengkang has). Yeah, the TOWN CENTER is being developed (I hope), and many of these facilities will be in there (I hope) - but that is at least 3 to 5 years away to be fully developed, and perhaps 5 to 10 years too late.
3 Apart from Punggol Plaza and the shop clusters at the LRT stations, land has also been set aside at the Punggol MRT station for future commercial and residential developments. However, such large commercial enterprises require sufficient critical mass of residents to be viable.
Aha! so they know that to have good facilities ("commercial enterprises"), we need sufficient critical mass of residents. The town center was probably then (and now is) designated to be around the Punggol MRT site. With the many years of experiences of URA and HDB, and the many town planners within them, why then did they built those many early block of flats at the peripheral of the town? How many folks would choose to settle into this early blocks, seeing that the MRT station (and thus the town center) is far away and undeveloped? Thus, most folks was not suckered by this fancifully-named town called Punggol 21 then. Obviously, the population grow is thus very slow. It was only in the last year, with news of the town center being developed around the MRT station, of the man-made waterway and its water-fronted flats that is at least attracting more attention - something that should have been done 10 years ago.....
10 year after Punggol-21 was announced, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in his National Day Rally speech on 19 August 2007 introduced the "Punggol 21-plus" plan. The "plus" is a misnomer actually, as the original Punggol-21 was never fully completed (and many plans was "minus" out). Punggol 21 has planned for 80,000 planned units – today, we are still far off from that number. What were in the original Punggol 21 that would made it " futuristic 21" if it is not the man-made waterway with water-fronted terraced flats? So, really, what does the “plus” offered? It was after this announcement that I start considering Punggol Town as a place to retire. Alas, still a few years too early.
Oh, one more thing. There are only 2 exits to TPE - via Punggol Way and Punggol Road with the bulk of the traffic to TPE is via Punggol Road. With more projects completed and folks moving in, and the town and its center being developed, this exit will get worse as it is serving the whole eastern side of Punggol! (There is very little activity on the western front). I do not wish to harp on the poor foresight of HDB that leave many blocks in Punggol with drastic shortage of parking spaces. But I do hope HDB/LTA has the foresight and has already planned to open up an exit along Punggol East road into the TPE soon......
By now, readers may have guessed this post is by an old man rambling on and on…..
MS 635B.
