News

The letter “ ” (Sept 5) appears to blame the long waiting time for the Housing Board’s construction of the Havelock Hillside and Ulu Pandan Banks projects for squandering the fertile years of couples awaiting a home to raise their brood. The writer’s observation may be accurate in the case of new towns, where many young couples might be affected by delays in the construction of their flats. But I doubt that the time taken to build the two projects mentioned, which are in the city fringe, will adversely affect the fertility of couples there. In the new towns, more manpower and other resources must be channelled to set up basic infrastructure such as roads, schools, food centres, public transport and healthcare centres, in order to make the towns functional. One of my nephews and his wife, whose flat was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, were able to give birth to and raise their two children without much difficulty while living in his parents’ flat. In fact, the couple saved a lot of money on food, rent and childcare for the young toddlers for about three or four years before they moved into their new flat a couple of months ago.