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Holland-Bukit Panjang GRC's anchor minister, Mr Lim Swee Say, said yesterday these blocks have been identified as eligible for the Lift Upgrading Programme (LUP).

The GRC's MPs will try to convince the National Development Ministry and the Housing Board to give priority to blocks which are over 30 years old and which have a higher percentage of elderly there.

 

He also said that after the coming election, a town council will be formed to serve Bukit Timah - which will be incorporated into the GRC - and Bukit Panjang, which is being hived off from the GRC and will be a single ward. The town council will determine how to allocate resources for the upgrading programmes in the two areas.

 

Jurong GRC MP Yu-Foo Yee Shoon, who will be appointed as second adviser to Bukit Timah, said the proportion of elderly people in the ward is about 20 per cent.

'This is slightly higher than the national average,' she said.

 

Meanwhile, at the launch of polling for lift upgrading for Blocks 451 to 460 in Tampines Street 42, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said the HDB will select 70 precincts, comprising 600 to 700 blocks, for lift upgrading this year - up from last year's 480 blocks in 64 precincts.

 

'We are on track to achieve our target of completing the Lift Upgrading Programme for all eligible blocks by 2014,' he said.

 

Fourteen blocks that were not eligible for lift upgrading previously will now get new lifts, thanks to savings from the use of a new lift installation system.

 

These blocks - in Ang Mo Kio, Bishan, Crawford Lane, Hougang, Tampines, Woodlands and Yishun - were not eligible as it would have cost more than $30,000 a block to retrofit them with lifts that stop on every floor. The new system that uses a smaller machine to power the lift and lighter materials will keep the costs below this price.

 

Over at Joo Chiat, Minister of State (Education and Trade and Industry) Chan Soo Sen said he will continue to raise requests for upgrading from the ward's poorest residents with the HDB.

 

The residents, many of them elderly and living in some 119 two-room flats in four HDB blocks in Siglap, have not received word that their estate will be upgraded any time soon.