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Resources to benefit all users of sports facilities
Sports
12 February 2015
Response to parliamentary questions on free parking at sports facilities
Questions
Mr Lim Biow Chuan: To ask the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth whether the Ministry will consider allowing free parking for the first two hours at all sports stadiums so as to encourage residents to use the sports facilities at the stadiums.
Dr Benedict Tan: To ask the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth whether the Ministry will consider offering free parking at selected sports facilities during non-peak hours to promote the use of these facilities and hence physical activity.
Response
Minister Lawrence Wong: Madam, we are always open to ideas to improve sports participation and usage of our sports facilities. But there is also a need to ensure that the limited resources we have are put to good use, and achieve their intended objectives. With free parking at sport facilities, there is a risk that the parking lots will be taken up by non-sport users. After all, many of our sports facilities are centrally located close to other amenities and transport hubs. Furthermore, there is no compelling reason why we should skew our support in favour of those who drive to our sports facilities, compared to the many who get there using public transport.
All things considered, therefore, we prefer to channel our resources to measures that can directly benefit all users of sports facilities. And this is why we launched ActiveSG last year and we provided ActiveSG members with a $100 credit, which can be used at our ActiveSG sports facilities and programmes. So every Singaporean, whether they drive or take public transport, can be an ActiveSG member and can enjoy the $100 credit. The response so far has been very good and close to 700,000 members have signed up and many are actively using our sports centres and facilities and participating in the wide range of programmes that are available.
We are also building new sport facilities and improving existing ones, so that a majority of Singaporeans will have convenient access to sports and recreational facilities within a 10 minute walk of their homes.