The Labrador and Alexandra areas will have four new parks—two of them by around 2025—as part of plans to improve wildlife connectivity between Labrador Nature Reserve and its surrounding green spaces.
These new parks will come under a new Labrador Nature Park Network, announced by Minister for National Development Desmond Lee on Tuesday (April 12).
Spanning over 200ha, the new network will comprise 11 sites, consisting of the four new parks, six existing parks, and Labrador Nature Reserve.
As part of the plans, Pasir Panjang Park will be extended by the end of 2022 to connect the nature reserve to West Coast Park, which is outside the network. In the future, the park will also see a waterfront extension at the Pasir Panjang Power District.
Of the four new parks, the first to be ready is a 0.4ha park at King’s Dock, which will be completed in 2024.
The 2ha Alexandra Nature Park will follow around 2025, and will feature a 500m-long trail set within a natural forest valley.
The last two new parks will be completed in tandem with a housing development on the site currently occupied by Keppel Club. On Tuesday, Mr Lee said about 6,000 HDB flats will be built on the 48ha site.
One of them—the 6.5ha Berlayer Creek Nature Park—will comprise the existing Berlayer Creek mangrove trail, as well as a 30m-wide extension on the side of the creek adjacent to the future housing development on the current Keppel Club site.
The National Parks Board (NParks) said this extension will act as a buffer for the mangrove habitat in the creek.
The final new park will be integrated with the new housing development. Spanning about 7ha, it will consist of four green corridors running along the site’s perimeter and weaving through the future residential estate.
Mr Lee said the development plans for the Keppel Club site were guided by an environmental impact study, given the site’s proximity to surrounding nature areas.
The findings of the study will be published and are open for public feedback from Tuesday to May 11, and the Housing & Development Board (HDB) said it will review the public’s feedback and the study’s recommendations when designing the new housing development.
Dr Shawn Lum, president of the Nature Society (Singapore), said the development of the Keppel Club site offers an opportunity to strengthen existing nature habitats in the area, create new ones, and incorporate viable wildlife corridors into a large-scale public housing project.
He added that the society and others in the nature and conservation community have been in discussions with the Government to find solutions that will allow both humans and nature to “thrive along our iconic southern coastline”.
On Tuesday, NParks said the establishment of the Labrador Nature Park Network was guided by its ecological profiling exercise, which maps out green spaces around Singapore to better understand their roles in maintaining biodiversity and to identify ways to enhance ecological connectivity.
Nature park networks establish a web of green spaces around nature reserves. These green spaces act as buffers for the reserves and expand habitats for wildlife.
Singapore has two other such networks, around Sungei Buloh and the Central Catchment Nature Reserve.
Besides the nature park networks, several nature corridors—which are made up of a number of green spaces aimed at strengthening ecological connectivity—have been established in various parts of the island.
NParks said the new Labrador nature park network complements the Clementi Nature Corridor, located south of the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, which connects the Alexandra and Labrador areas.
Besides establishing the network to buffer the Labrador Nature Reserve, NParks had previously announced other initiatives to enhance its rare and unique habitats, such as the restoration of its existing coastal hill forest and rocky shore—both of which are among the few remaining such habitats native to Singapore.
NParks said the ecological profiling exercise for the entire island is still ongoing, and findings for other areas will be shared when ready.
Dr Lum said that with the development plans for the Keppel Club site announced, it is also important how the vacant plot between Berlayer Creek and Labrador Nature Reserve is developed in the future.
The plot, which spans about 10ha, was previously a refinery. A spokesman for the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) said the plot is zoned for “residential (subject to detailed planning)”, adding that there are no immediate plans for the development of the site, which has been tenanted out by the Singapore Land Authority for interim uses such as aero-modelling.
Dr Lum said the plot is crucial to the ecological integrity of the Labrador area as it connects the nature reserve to the mangroves in Berlayer Creek, adding that it has “huge potential for forest restoration”.
He said that even if it were to be developed in the future, it is important that agencies factor in how green features can be incorporated into the area’s design—in the way plans for the Keppel Club site were drawn up—instead of having them added in as an afterthought.
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