Grassroots Leaders, Residents, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Today, I am very pleased to be here to officially launch the exhibition and polling for the Interim Upgrading Programme for your precinct. I would like to congratulate all residents in this precinct. Your precinct is selected based on social and cleanliness factors among other selection criteria. This is a direct recognition of a good neighbour, a good community where the common facilities when upgraded will be enjoyed and taken care of by a civic-minded group of residents.

This will also be the first precinct in Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC to undergo IUP.

While the design of this precinct was among the best 12 years ago, it now looks old compared with the newer flats in the new HDB towns.

Interim Upgrading Programme (IUP) will provide an opportunity for HDB estates between 10 - 17 years of age to be upgraded and injected with new facilities.

IUP was introduced in 1993 to complement the Main Upgrading Programme which hopes to upgrade the quality of older HDB estates, to keep established communities intact, enhance the value of older flats, and to enable the Town Council to implement selected improvements earlier.

IUP also allows more residents to enjoy the benefits of the upgrading programme earlier.

Around this area, there are abundant facilities such as Loyang Primary and Secondary School, Seashell Park, Community Centre with Polyclinic, Neighbourhood Police Centre and AMP co-located in the same building, HDB Branch Office, neighbourhood centre and the scenic view of Sungei Tampines.

Many of you have been staying here for many years and have become very familiar with your neighbours and surrounding.

With IUP, you can continue to stay here without having to move to another place to enjoy the same standard.

Under the Interim Upgrading Programme, improvements will only be carried out for the common areas and physical environment in the precinct. Space adding items such as extra toilets, balconies or utility rooms will be carried out when the precinct undergo the Main Upgrading Programme.

I am also glad to announce that the precinct has been selected for the Lift Upgrading Programme (LUP). The LUP aims to have lifts stop at every floor of high-rise HDB flats built before 1990. This will certainly benefit the elderly and the less mobile residents greatly.

The LUP was introduced last year and it is well sought after by residents living in the older estates. In fact, several MPs have also urged the Government to speed up the lift upgrading exercise and all the Batch 8 IUP precincts have requested that LUP be offered to them as well.

In response, the Government decided to implement a new programme called IUP Plus under which both interim and lift upgrading will be carried out concurrently. This was announced by the Minister for National Development recently and it will be introduced later this year. But for our precinct, we are conducting a poll to get both the benefits of IUP and LUP now, much earlier than those precincts which are yet to be identified for IUP Plus .

In the past five years, Government has committed on average 34 precincts selected for upgrading each year. For this year, the pace of upgrading will be maintained. 34 precincts will be picked this year: 10 MUP, 16 IUP Plus and eight for LUP standalone.

However, for us to help you fulfil your dream of a better living environment, we need you to vote in favour of it and pay a small portion of the cost.

While the Government has agreed to implement the IUP and LUP in this precinct, we would still need at least 75% of the residents in the precinct to vote in favour of the upgrading in order to go ahead. I strongly urge all residents to give your support by voting "YES" in the polling form.

IUP and LUP are costly projects, but we are able to enjoy them because of your support and co-operation as good residents and members of the community.

Conclusion

Besides providing better environment and facilities, we hope residents will continue to cultivate the good social behaviour in them, participate actively in community activities to foster closer community bonding, and work towards making Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC our Best Home.

With that, I would like to declare the Interim Upgrading Programme and Lift Upgrading Programme for precinct Blocks 422 to 429 officially launched.

Thank You.