Addenda to President's Address - Liveable City, Endearing Home

1. Singapore is our Home. It is where we share our lives with our families and friends, and realise our aspirations. We will build a liveable city and an endearing home for all Singaporeans.

2. One key priority is to continue to upgrade and transform our public housing estates. Through the Home Improvement Programme (HIP), we will refresh older HDB estates, covering 100,000 flats within the next three years. We will help couples and their parents live together, or close by, so that they can care for each other and render mutual support. We will facilitate ageing-in-place by making HDB homes and estates elder-friendly, and enhance them with more amenities.

3. Singaporeans can also look forward to more parks, waterways, cultural and sports facilities. We will expand the park connector network and build the Round-Island Route, a 150 km continuous recreational corridor connecting Singaporeans to parks and places of interest across the island. Our aim is for nearly all Singaporeans to live within 400 metres of a park; to be within a 10-minute walk of a sports and recreational facility; and to have convenient access to an island-wide network of arts and culture nodes and heritage trails.

4. To keep our city liveable, we will invest heavily to increase the capacity of our public transport system and significantly raise service standards. In the next three years, new lines and extensions will expand our rail network by 25%. We will upgrade the signalling system for our oldest lines to run at shorter intervals and add 83 more trains to cut waiting time. We will restructure the public bus industry by transiting to a contracting model where the government plans bus service routes and owns key assets such as bus depots and buses, while companies bid for the right to operate the routes. This will benefit commuters, who can look forward to better and more responsive bus services.

5. At the same time, we will develop a greater variety of sustainable transport options. We will build over 200 km of sheltered walkways, and a comprehensive island-wide cycling path network totalling over 700 km. We will also encourage alternatives to car ownership, such as car-sharing schemes, to cater to those who need to use a car from time to time, and make this a city where owning a car is not a necessity.

6. We will take full advantage of new technologies, especially sensors like video cameras, fibre and wireless networks, robotics technology like driverless vehicles, and ordinary citizens with smart phones, to make Singapore a Smart Nation – one with greener and more pleasant urban living, more effective public services and more opportunities for citizen engagement.

7. Ultimately, we need all Singaporeans to contribute to our shared goal of a liveable city and endearing home. The government will continue to seek ideas from the community and support ground-up efforts, which help strengthen community harmony, and enhance our sense of identity and belonging to Singapore.

The details of the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth’s initiatives are highlighted below.

Factsheet for Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth

NEWS POINTS AND KEY MESSAGES

1. MCCY is committed to developing and enhancing our cultural infrastructure.

2. Build a network of modern sports facilities under the Sports Facilities Master Plan (SFMP).

3. More than 280,000 people have signed-up for ActiveSG as of 18 May 2014.

Arts and Heritage – City of arts and culture for everyone

1. Boost support for the artists and arts groups, making performing arts spaces more accessible and opening doors for our artists to showcase their works on the international stage.

   1. Initiatives to support this

      1. MCCY has committed an additional $20m to enhance our efforts to (i) profile Singaporean artists and our cultural offerings abroad and (ii) develop our artists, audiences and cultural institutions through international exchanges.

      2. Venice Biennale as a platform for Singapore’s visual artists to be represented on the international stage. We will continue to raise Singapore’s profile as an emerging centre in Asia for artistic production and research, to enlarge opportunities for our artists to showcase their work and to enable them to build international networks.

2. Develop and enhance our cultural infrastructure

   1. New National Gallery Singapore for modern and historical visual art

      1. National Gallery Singapore will focus on displaying Southeast Asian art, including Singapore art, from the 19th century to present day.

      2. For details on the Gallery’s vision and upcoming developments, please refer to National Gallery Singapore’s webpage. 

   2. New Indian Heritage Centre in Little India 

      1. The Indian Heritage Centre is scheduled to open in 2015.

      2. Since the launch of its Artefact Collection Drive in June 2011, the IHC has garnered a diverse range of artefacts from the community. These artefacts highlight the diverse roots of Singapore’s Indian community as well as acknowledge the contributions of Singapore’s Indian pioneers. Artist impressions of IHC available. 

   3. Enhance the National Museum of Singapore and the Asian Civilisations Museum

      1. As part of the enhancement works, a new space for children, PLAY@NMS will be launched on 24 May 14. It will be a multi-sensory environment dedicated to children, with interactive exhibitions that encourage learning through play.

   4. Refurbish Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall, and the Esplanade

3. Establish a Public Art Trust to fill our public spaces with works of art, to to bring arts everywhere.

4. Form an island-wide network of community arts and culture nodes, community museums and galleries, as well as heritage trails.

   1. Singaporeans can look forward to more than 2,300 arts and culture activities at such Nodes in the coming years as we plan to set up 25 Nodes by 2025. For more information on the Community Nodes, please refer to the media release.

      1. Launch of Jurong Node on 3 May

      2. Launch of Tampines Node on 10 May

Sports – Live Better Through Sports

1. Build a network of modern sports facilities under the Sports Facilities Master Plan (SFMP). Sports facilities will be available within a 10-minute walk of most homes.

   1. The Singapore Sports Hub would be completed this year, and will be accompanied by an array of exciting events and programmes for Singaporeans.

   2. Phase One of SFMP:

      1. Regional Sports Centre in Punggol – to be integrated with Punggol’s waterways and adjoin a SAFRA clubhouse.

      2. Sembawang Town Sports and Recreation Centre – part of a community hub to bring more vibrancy and convenience to residence.

      3. Ang Mo Kio Swimming Complex – to be redeveloped into a Wet Play Field 

      4. For more information on the SFMP, please refer to SFMP webpage. 

2. Offer more sporting programmes in the community through ActiveSG 

   1. ActiveSG was launched at Jurong West Sports Centre on 26 April 2014 by Minister Lawrence Wong. Since then, ActiveSG has had 5 Open Houses island-wide, and membership sign-up has been encouraging.

      1. More than 280,000 people have signed-up for ActiveSG as of 18 May 2014.

      2. ActiveSG aims sustain sports participation and leverage on sports to strengthen family and community ties.

      3. For more information on ActiveSG, please refer to ActiveSG webpage.

3. Continue to support Singaporeans with the ability and potential to excel in sport and do Singapore proud.

   1. The High Performance Sports System will continue to meet the needs of Team Singapore athletes to continue to achieve success at major games, and bring pride to Singapore. The three schemes under the High Performance System include the Sports Excellence (SpEx) Scholarship, Sports Excellence Education Scheme and Sports Excellence Career Scheme

   2. The SpEx Scholarship has four different support models to suit the readiness of our athletes.