By MP for Aljunied GRC, Chen Show Mao
[Delivered in Committee of Supply on 12 March 2015]
Madam Chairman,
This year, being the 50th since the founding of the Republic of Singapore, is a time for reflection on our history and our heritage.
The Government has expended efforts over the years to preserve our country’s built heritage. For example, the establishment of the National Heritage Board in 1993, and the policy of preserving the facades of historical buildings. The Urban Redevelopment Authority has also published a set of conservation guidelines for our built heritage.
At the same time, members of civil society, such as the Singapore Heritage Society, have played an important educational and advocacy role in the conservation of our country’s history and heritage.
In 2013, the National Heritage Board set up a new division called the Impact Assessment and Mitigation Division. As reported in the press, Mr Alvin Tan, group director of policy, said that the job of the new division was to conduct impact assessments of redevelopment works on heritage sites and structures and work with the necessary stakeholders to establish mitigation measures.
Given the increasing importance of conserving our heritage, I wish to ask the Minister for an update on the work of this Division, and whether more specifics of its work can be made publicly available, perhaps periodically in an annual report. I would also like to ask what the Key Performance Indicators are for the Division. Will the Division be leading the way, for example, to formalize and publicize a heritage impact assessment framework across different agencies?
A number of countries have heritage impact assessment frameworks in place, such as Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the UK. I hope that the Government can study the heritage frameworks that other countries employ, and share with Singaporeans their best practices, so that we may learn from other countries and hopefully have our own framework in place.
I believe there are lessons to be learnt when Singaporeans raised significant concerns regarding heritage issues as with the demolition of the former National Library, and the redevelopment of parts of the Bukit Brown Cemetery. I believe that implementing a heritage impact assessment framework will mitigate such concerns in the future, and should be the next step forward to conserve our country’s heritage and history.