http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/bedok-residents-to-get/1283680.html

Come 2017, residents in Bedok can look forward to a one-stop centre that will house facilities for healthcare, community activities and sports. The new Bedok Integrated Complex will not just offer different facilities, but also integrated programmes for residents.

The groundbreaking ceremony for the complex was held on Saturday morning (July 26). The new complex has been drumming up excitement in Bedok. Sitting on a site which is the size of three football fields, the integrated hub in Bedok boasts five facilities to cater to families of all ages.

The complex will be built on the current Bedok Adventure Park along Bedok North Street 1. A revamped community club – the Kampong Chai Chee Community Club – will offer music, cooking and arts activities. A sports centre meanwhile will feature five swimming pools, as well as six sheltered tennis courts, and fitness studios.

There will also be a public library and a polyclinic. While those four facilities will be relocated into the complex, a new eldercare centre will be specially built. The eldercare centre will integrate both health and social care services to support the needs of seniors in the community.The various facilities will not just be housed together in the complex, but are also going to work together to create integrated programmes for residents, be it for health, community or sport.

Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry and National Development Lee Yi Shyan said: “If you look at it from the polyclinic’s point of view, we know they see a lot of chronic cases, people with hypertension, high blood pressure, diabetes and so on. And some of these will require a change in their daily exercises, their daily activity levels, their meals.”

“So the Community Club can conduct classes, for example, on healthy cooking, on dietary control. The sports facilities can organise programmes, maybe water aerobics, maybe water cycling to get some of our people to be more active,” added Mr Lee, who is also MP for East Coast GRC and Grassroots Adviser to the GRC.

Plans for the complex were first announced in 2011 as part of HDB’s Remaking Our Heartland plans for the East Coast area. Since then, 11,000 residents have been surveyed and encouraged to share their ideas for the new building. One thing was clear – a single location for family activities was preferred.

Chitra Manikam, a Bedok resident, said: “When we want to go for swimming and all these things, we had to take a feeder bus down. And when we want to go to the gym, we had to take a feeder bus down. But now since it’s centralised, it’s near the interchange and everything, I think it’s more convenient.”

Another Bedok resident, Narziah Abdul Shakor, said: “Being in one of the oldest towns, I think it (the complex) really brings a new facelift to our area, I think that’s a good boost to everyone. ”

Facilities will be relocated into the new complex in phases, but there will not be any temporary suspension of their current services. The complex is expected to benefit about 250,000 East Coast residents.