Part of Campbell Lane to become pedestrian mall by early 2015

SINGAPORE — Campbell Lane from Serangoon Road to Clive Street will be turned into a pedestrian mall by early next year, after a tender was awarded by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) last month, said one of its officials yesterday at the Committee of Inquiry (COI) hearing into the Little India riot.

An update provided by the URA at the hearing said the pedestrian mall will serve as a good gathering space. Construction is expected to begin in the first quarter of this year.

URA Group Director (Conservation and Development Services) Ler Seng Ann said the change was one of the tasks the multi-agency Little India Task Force (LITF) undertook as part of its aim to improve the physical environment of Little India.

In as early as 2002, the URA had considered making Campbell Lane off-limits to vehicular traffic in order to make the area easier to explore on foot.

The LITF, which was set up in 2006, comprises representatives from other agencies such as the Land Transport Authority and the Singapore Police Force.

It implemented many proposed physical improvements to the area between 2008 and 2011. One of them included the installation of lights in the dim back lanes of Serangoon and Veerasamy roads.

Another issue the task force faced was the heavy congregation of foreign workers on weekends, said Mr Ler.

“So what we have done is … we thought one way is … to make use of the car park, which is less used during the weekend; close it off and use it for congregation,” he added.

When asked by State Counsel John Lu if there were other congregation-related measures the task force had implemented, Mr Ler said there was no specific proposal as there was a focus on upgrading the physical environment of Little India.

However, Mr Ler noted that the Government had made a “conscious effort” not to sell state land in areas where foreign workers heavily congregated on weekends, such as the Birch Road area.

“This ... so-called, in our term, informal gathering space, we allowed them, so we deferred the development till much later,” he said.

“We have no immediate plan to develop the area.”