SINGAPORE – More garden areas, a butterfly garden and a dog run are some of the features of the new 4.8 hectare Bukit Gombak Park, which opened on Sunday (September 5th).
Local residents asked for a few things during the park’s development deliberations, said Ms. Low Yen Ling, a MP for Chua Chu Kang GRC, who opened it to about 150 residents at an event on Sunday morning.
Ms. Low said during the opening, “During our monthly consultations, residents said they wanted more allotments for gardening along the way to West Coast Park, so we built the first one in this area.”
Minister of Commerce and Industry and Chua Chu Kang MP Gan Kim Yong also attended the ceremony, and the two MPs planted a tree together to celebrate the opening.
This comes a day after the National Parks Board (NParks) announced that Singapore’s heavily industrialized west coast will see significant greening by 2030.
The new park is about the size of seven soccer fields and sits on a hill 45 m above sea level – a little less than a third of the height of Bukit Timah Hill.
The park, which overlooks Bukit Gombak and some of the property’s wooded areas, is part of the Bukit Batok Nature Corridor – which forms an ecological corridor between the Central Nature Park Network and the Tengah Forest Corridor in western Singapore.
The park was built on previously undeveloped grassland across from the Bukit Batok Driving Center and has been slowed down by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on construction.
“The groundbreaking for this park was on March 31, 2019, and a year later, in 2020, it was about 85 percent complete, but then Singapore had to go to the breaker and work was stopped. After that, the work has slowed the limits of the number of workers who can enter at the same time, “Ms. Low told the media at the event.
The park has about 1,500 trees and care has been taken to conserve the area’s biodiversity, she added.
One way to accomplish this was to create a butterfly garden near the top of the park, which NParks created in consultation with butterfly experts on the plant species required.
NParks also worked with local butterfly enthusiasts like Steven Chong, 64, and Ms. Lim Cheng Ai, 56, to study the butterflies that live there when the park was almost ready for the public.
Ms. Lim, who has been photographing the colorful, flowering insects in Singapore and the region for the past three years, told The Straits Times: “Before the park development began, there was an investigation of the Bukit Gombak area and about 45 species of butterflies were recorded in the area where the park was to be built.
“Now that NParks has planted host plants (for caterpillars) and nectar plants (where butterflies get their food) in this garden, many are returning and we have at least 45 species here again, but with some species changes.”
Chua Chu Kang MPs Gan Kim Yong (left) and Low Yen Ling jointly planted a tree to mark the opening. ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN
The park also has a playground for children combined with an exercise area for adults, a 400 m long circuit and a café called Whisk & Paddle.
Bukit Gombak resident Sally Chee, 54, who works in manufacturing, and warehouse worker Peter Phua, 56, used the park after it opened.
The couple told ST that the new park was practical and scenic.
Ms. Chee said in Mandarin, “I’ve been working from home for so long – this park will be a good place for me to relax.
