SINGAPORE: Over the past year, the Land Transport Authority has unleashed new regulations to mandate that private hire car drivers obtain vocational licenses under amendments to the Road Traffic Act.

The amendments also seek to provide authorities with powers to introduce and enforce other rules to ensure service operators provide authorities with trip and other fleet-related data to help in transport planning functions.

If 2015 and 2016 were the years when the first green shoots of the sharing economy began budding, the same can be said about Government regulations in 2017, striving to catch up with new business models.

The fundamental challenge is that past regulations regarding taxis have sought to manage private transport as a business that earns companies and drivers an income, both of whom are to be charged a fair share of business taxes.

This is distinct from personal transport, where cars were seen as a personal consumption good to be taxed at point of purchase and during its utilisation, to manage road congestion. 

But ride-sharing applications like Grab and Uber have blurred the lines, helping entrepreneurial private property and vehicle owners unlock the value of their assets by matching peer-to-peer demand and supply, and giving them the opportunity to make money as a small business owner.

Users who once lamented the difficulty in finding taxis during peak hour welcome Uber and Grab.

Some also say that they help utilise resources that are otherwise inactive – for instance when drivers pick up a hitch rider.

But businesses in these sectors, especially the people whose jobs are becoming redundant and incomes are being disrupted, are on the losing end. The average daily ridership for taxis just experienced an 8 year-low last August.

Bike rental shops at East Coast Park reported seeing their businesses drop by 20 to 40 per cent this September, since bike-sharing operators started aggressively deploying bikes there.

Impact on other segments of the market are less obvious and inconclusive meanwhile.

Others are picking up on the disamenities to the public as a whole, with the resultant increased traffic as more drivers unfamiliar with their surroundings drive passengers around slowly and on the back of slightly higher Certificate of Entitlement prices as cars are snapped up by Uber and Grab car rental operators.

A further disruption may be on the horizon for Singapore, an early adopter in Asia of various sharing schemes since 2012 whether they be cars, bikes or office space.

In the property market, the advent of Airbnb may have knock-on effects on the hospitality sector, still buoyed for now by waves of higher tourism and visitorship numbers.

Our view is that the impact is limited for now, but like in other modern metropolis such as London and New York, where a high agglomeration of smart and highly skilled talent who use and build these apps gather, Singapore should expect that it will have to reckon with this next digitally enabled disruption eventually.

THE GOOD AND BAD OF AIRBNB

Airbnb has experienced an unprecedented expansion across the globe. In a short span of 10 years since its inception, Airbnb has established its presence in more than 65,000 cities in 191 countries, offering affordable, alternative accommodation and connecting visitors to authentic local experiences.

Many use the platform to monetise their extra space or rent out their second apartments for the short term, and the incomes earned can be sizable.

In 2016, Airbnb’s listings were booked for 52 million nights, more than double the 25 million achieved in 2015, while gross booking numbers worldwide have more than doubled.

In Singapore, Airbnb rentals were reported to have played host to 317,000 visitors in Singapore in the 12 months up until August 2017, with hosts renting out their properties for 39 nights each year and earning about S$5,300 a year on average.

Apart from earning extra income for property owners, many analysts argue that Airbnb potentially reduces leakage from the local economy, since accommodation fees are paid to local homeowners, as opposed to corporate hotels headquartered elsewhere.

Others laud its approach to filing market inefficiencies, by matching empty homes to fuss-free visitors without incurring the high costs that hotels do to keep common amenities like indoor air-conditioning and swimming pools running, even when not in use.

Those who will be disrupted by the Airbnb model are likely mid-tier and economy hotel operators that do not have a strong business clientele – but still incur relevant costs and taxes like the commercial property tax and Formula- 1 cess.

Within those neighbourhoods that have high numbers of Airbnb rentals, studies in Amsterdam show that Airbnb rentals drove up property prices up because of the returns they commanded, and contributed to their gentrification, where partying tourists create a nuisance for local residents.

Closer to Airbnb homes, neighbours may feel uneasy seeing strangers share the same lifts and using the same common facilities. Private condominium management committees may be concerned about potential externalities, where a large number of Airbnb guests may compromise the development’s sense of exclusivity, image and perceived security.

POSSIBLE ECONOMIC IMPACT

One value proposition Airbnb offers is short-term stay in areas not served by licensed hotel operators. In such cases, Airbnb homes arguably provide a different class of accommodation that do not compete with or adversely impact hotel operators.

In Singapore, most of the Airbnb listings are found in the areas outside the central areas of the Orchard Road shopping belt, Raffles Place and City Hall, where hotel rooms are highly concentrated.

In these central areas, the standard average occupancy rate for hotels in Singapore remain strong, fluctuating within a narrow band of 82 to 92 per cent and the revenue per available room rate averages at S$217.1 for the period between January 2013 and December 2015, based on STB’s statistics. This is a vast difference from the lower prices that Airbnb accommodations command.

Currently, as Airbnb rentals are less common compared to other cities in Asia and around the world, it does not seem like Singapore’s property markets will be affected.

A simple macro-analyisis of the rental rates and property prices of 60 listings in 38 private condominiums near the Novena MRT station, one area in Singapore with a high concentration of listings offering one to two-night stays, do not seem to indicate any noticeable impact from Airbnb.

CATCHING UP WITH AIRBNB

Government regulations to temper speculation in the rental market are trying to catch up with Airbnb.

Over the past year, the Singapore Government has relaxed regulations of short-term leases from a minimum period of six months for private property to three months in June 2017, but upheld a maximum of six guests permitted.

The irony is that while Airbnb places the onus of ensuring compliance with relevant zoning rules and regulations on the property owners, the fact is Airbnb rentals are not legally covered by existing rules and there are no provisions for short-term rentals shorter than three months.

For now, because the number of Airbnb rentals are low in Singapore and the impact on the hotel and housing sectors is limited, the issue is less pressing from a regulatory standpoint.

But this number can grow quickly, by which time the costs of regulating such homestays could be substantial and difficult to address.

A “don’t fix it if it ain’t broke” approach only serves to kick the can down the road.

Any new legislation will have a tough time balancing the property rights of owners who want to monetise their assets, licensed hotel operators who feel some demand squeeze and neighbours who bear the disamenities of a higher footfall of strangers so close to their homes.

Regulations should aim to create a level playing field where short-term homestays through Airbnb allow property owners to unlock the value of their assets and offers a value proposition to travellers that hotel operators can’t – while incorporating a sense of the cost to the development or community in the pricing and occupancy taxation structure.

The heart of the issue is this – instead of shying away because the disruption that the sharing economy imposes on Singapore doesn’t fit nicely into our regulatory frameworks and public policy priorities, we should aim to give consumers more choices and price the externalities and costs imposed into the market.

Taking a leaf from how authorities approach private-hire car operators, it’s not a stretch to imagine the same approach may be used for Airbnb rental operators.

It’ll be interesting to see how the Government redistributes the externalities to local communities if that happens.

Sumit Agarwal is the William G Droms Term Professor of Finance at McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University. Sing Tien Foo is the Director of Institute of Real Estate Studies (IRES), National University of Singapore, and Chia Liu Ee is a researcher at the same institute.

SINGAPORE: Mr Sathananthan Selvadurai generally avoids public pools.

Having spent more than a decade designing water treatment technology, including for swimming pools, this lecturer at Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s School of Life Sciences and Chemical Technology knows full well about the impurities that make their way into these pools.

These include saliva, urine and other body waste, besides solid particles such as dirt, leaves, bandages, and sometimes, cockroaches.

The problem, however, lies in the amount of pollutants that can be found. Experts caution that too much ammonia, for example, and it can react with chemicals in the pool to cause respiratory problems and eye irritation.

(Read: High rates of respiratory problems linked to indoor lifeguard work)

“The main sources of ammonia in swimming pools are brought by swimmers: Urine, body waste and also mucus liquid. These are the main contaminants, which contribute to the increase in ammonia concentration,” Mr Sathananthan said.

His concerns may not be unfounded. Earlier this year, Canadian researchers figured out a way to measure the amount of urine in swimming pools, and what they found after collecting samples from 31 pools was startling.

In one pool, the researchers found 75 litres of urine over three weeks, while in another pool they tested, there was some 30 litres of urine.

There has not been a similar study done in Singapore, but there is a test, known as the ammonia chlorine test, that can show if there is a presence of ammonia in pools here.

Producers of Channel NewsAsia’s Why It Matters programme collected water samples from 10 out of Singapore’s 24 public pools. The ten were in Toa Payoh, Bukit Batok, Clementi, Yishun, Bedok, Jurong East, Bishan, Choa Chu Kang, Hougang and Ang Mo Kio.

These samples were tested with a reagent in Mr Sathananthan’s laboratory. Ammonia was found in all of them, though the levels – going by the differing shades of pink, which signals the presence ammonia – appeared to vary among the pools.

It is impossible, noted Mr Sathananthan, to expect zero trace of ammonia.

QUALITY STANDARDS SET BY NEA

The question is whether there is any cause for concern for the public.

Tampines Swimming Complex senior lifeguard Derrick Yeo, who ensures that the pool meets the safety requirements set by the National Environmental Agency (NEA), said water samples from public pools like at Tampines are regularly sent for testing for bacteria and germs.

This follows the Environmental Public Health Act, which requires swimming pool operators to meet certain conditions before their pools can be used by the public.

The process includes arranging for the pool water to be analysed by accredited laboratories for chemical and bacteriological quality at least monthly. And these test results must be submitted to the NEA, according to its website.

“We have passed the test all this while … Conditions so far are acceptable,” Mr Yeo said, before adding a caveat. “If, for example, more people are urinating in the pool, those conditions might change.”

The fact is that most public pool operators replace only 10 to 12 per cent of their water with fresh water every few days, which is why ammonia in the pools cannot be completely removed.

And the water in most pools is never completely replaced from the day they open.

HOW POOLS ARE CLEANED

To make a public pool safe for swimming, the water – besides being flushed out and replenished regularly – typically undergoes three stages of filtration to remove solid particles, and after that, a final stage of chlorination.

However, impurities like mucus or urine will remain even after the entire treatment process, said Mr Sathananthan. So chlorine is constantly pumped into the pool to kill most of the germs and bacteria.

Mr Yeo noted: “The chlorine can’t be so strong that it kills the germs and bacteria immediately. So it has to be (added) over a period of time, if not it’ll be harmful to the skin when the chlorine level is too high.”

To remove sediments that have settled on the pool floor – including debris, hair and dirt – vacuum cleaners are used once a week.

On top of that, at Tampines Swimming Complex, some six divers spend at least six hours every week scrubbing the tiles of the floor to prevent the growth of algae, which could otherwise become a breeding ground for bacteria.

There is also one other cleaning method: Super chlorination, when a large amount of chlorine is added to the pool in order to destroy germs.

“For public pools, it’s difficult to do this because they (the operators) need to close off the pool, which is inconvenient for the public,” said Mr Sathananthan.

If someone poos in the pool, however, there is no other choice but to close it, vacuum it thoroughly and do a super chlorination, said Mr Yeo, who has encountered this situation before.

“So we actually encourage and educate our guests to take a toilet break whenever they need (it),” he said.

THE SIMPLE SOLUTION

In a sense, the initial responsibility for pool maintenance still lies with users practising proper pool hygiene – such as showering before jumping in.

For example, faecal matter, which can be invisible to the naked eye, can be present on a swimmer’s hands and skin. A study by the United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the average person carries 0.14 grams of faeces on his or her rear end. Children can carry up to 10 grams of faecal matter.

Senior microbiologist Renugopal from Marchwood Laboratory Services, which runs bacterial tests on various water sources in Singapore, said harmful bacteria such as salmonella, E coli and coliform are found in faecal matter and could cause diarrhoea and dysentery if ingested.

Showering before entering the pool is also important to remove organic matter such as hair wax, cosmetic make-up and body oil.

A 2014 study by the US’ National Swimming Pool Foundation found that these organic matter react with chlorine to form by-products such as trihalomethanes and chloramines, which, if produced in large enough quantities could cause respiratory problems for swimmers.

However, not all swimmers here shower before jumping into the pool. At one swimming complex, for instance, only 21 people were observed to have done so in the span of an hour, out of the hundreds using the pool.

Mr Renugopal said: “Shower before going into the swimming pool because it’s good for other people too, not only us.”

And with Singapore’s swimming pool attendance numbers at more than seven million last year, users can make quite a difference.

Watch this episode of Why It Matters here (new episodes every Monday).

SINGAPORE: Some of the 5,000 sets of parents in Singapore must have heaved a communal sigh of relief after receiving their kids’ results from the the gifted education programme (GEP) selection test this week. 

Many may have felt disappointed as only a small percentage of students make it through.

The pain may be more palpable if they had spent significant time and money preparing their child for the big tests.

As a story on Channel NewsAsia shows, more parents today are willing to fork out thousands of dollars for specialised tuition to ensure their children stand a better chance of entering the GEP.

The GEP was originally designed to stretch those students with demonstrated higher abilities, and cater to their different learning needs. But has it become another rat race?

Is it possible to groom a child to be gifted? What are the effects on a child who has been groomed to enter the GEP?

GIFTEDNESS

Giftedness is an often-misunderstood domain.

While there are highly desirable qualities associated with giftedness, such as early language development, high energy levels, an ability to grasp concepts quickly, and an unusual memory capacity, there are other personality quirks that may come with the gifted package, such as over-excitabilities or super-sensitivities, and asynchronous development. 

In his book Serving the Gifted, Steven Pfeiffer asserts that giftedness is merely a social construct, invented as a useful way to categorise and understand a special group of children.

In Singapore, it is also a construct that helps to inform education policy. While the Ministry of Education (MOE)’s website recognises that there are other forms of giftedness, it states that GEP caters to the intellectually gifted.

Its pedagogy emphasises creativity, and the development of higher order thinking and problem-solving skills. 

Another hallmark of the GEP is its special programmes that complement the enriched curriculum, usually offered in specific domains such as science or innovation, and involving a mentorship component.  

Since 2008, nine primary schools that offer GEP have introduced initiatives to promote greater interaction between GEP and non-GEP pupils.

Some of these schools have integrated form classes comprising GEP and non-GEP students, while other schools have separate form classes but combined classes for subjects such as Art, Chinese language, music, and physical education.

These initiatives enable gifted and mainstream students to have more opportunities for interaction, thereby reducing the divide between the two groups and promoting greater assimilation.

Because of its exclusivity, varied enrichment-style programmes, and smaller classroom size, the GEP holds a definite allure for parents, who may be motivated to send their child off to expensive tuition courses targeted to get them into the GEP.

MANUFACTURING A GIFTED CHILD

Gifted programme tutor Adrian Kuek, Dean of Joyous Learning, has been preparing pupils for the GEP assessments for the past seven years.

He was quoted in the aforementioned article saying that he is unable to tell whether a student will eventually get in or not.

However, the numbers on his website sound pretty convincing; Kuek has helped over 300 students gain admission into GEP. This works out to an average of 42 gifted students a year.

Considering that there are only around 500 to 550 students in the programme each year, that’s a significant 7 to 8 per cent contribution to the gifted ranks from one centre alone. 

While we will never know how many would have gotten into GEP without preparatory classes, this statistic begs the question:

What is giftedness if it can be manufactured by way of intensive training?

Does this also mean that the programme is now becoming less relevant in serving the needs of the “truly gifted”?

GEP TO CHALLENGE CHILDREN NOT DRILL THEM 

There is an ill-conceived notion that GEP is synonymous with good grades. The reality is likely far more complex and fragmented.

Pamela Tan, a mother of three, shared with me: “I have heard criticism that the GEP curriculum is so broad-based that they don’t spend enough time drilling the kids to be exam smart, resulting in GEP kids getting average PSLE results.”

Although aware of this, Tan still enrolled her eldest child to the GEP this year. She is prepared to take good PSLE results as a bonus, not an entitlement, and doesn’t see the GEP programme as a guarantee of good PSLE results.

“Even if he doesn’t do extremely well, we have no regrets letting him join the GEP as we feel it is a good experience for him. It challenges and engages him.”

We have to re-think the straight line that has been drawn between being gifted and top scores. It doesn’t always work that way.

A letter written by a mother of three shared on a portal for parents states that:

Intelligence is difficult to measure, and achievement in school doesn’t always determine intelligence. 

Author of Educating Your Gifted Child, Celi Trepanier puts it aptly:

Being gifted is who they are, not how well they do in school.

GEP NOT A TICKET TO SUCCESS

Parents sending their child to GEP preparatory classes thinking it is the surest route to success could be barking up the wrong tree.

Sure, the child may eventually join the gifted ranks after an intensive period of study, but it may be an even more arduous process to keep his position intact.

Intensive tuition will likely be on the cards. Sometimes, this may not even yield visible results.

Because of the time taken up by tuition, the child ends up with very little time for rest, let alone space to pursue his interests or daydream, activities regarded as essential ingredients of childhood that go into raising a happy, creative child who is passionate about learning. 

In other words, the success that comes with drilling may be short-lived at best, and damaging at worst.

The unrealistic expectations of family members, coupled with the fact that the child is being put on a treadmill constantly set at a faster pace or a steeper slope than what he is actually suited for, can be overwhelming and disempowering. 

Even for the gifted kids who have not received any preparatory classes, the struggle is real. A friend’s son shared that while he enjoys the interesting projects and finds them engaging, there are times when the stress and workload can cause him to feel a sense of frustration.  

DON’T NEED GEP TO SUCCEED IN LIFE

As a society, we need to decide what sort of generation we want to raise. A narrow focus on becoming that elusive 1 per cent can be hindrance to a child’s learning and development.

Refocusing on the bigger picture may help to pave the way to a more balanced mindset towards education.

Challenges are good for children to develop resilience but what is truly needed are real world challenges that children will encounter in day-to-day life.

As Shimi Kang writes in her book The Dolphin Way: “Being off balance, pushed into things, or having things done for us actually deprives us of the joy of overcoming a challenge.”

In the pursuit for GEP or other similarly “fast-track” routes, don’t miss out on nurturing your child’s fundamental needs – a loving relationship with their parents, sufficient rest, and time for play and exploration.

With a firm grounding in these basics, your child will be able to develop in the areas of creativity, communication, critical thinking and collaboration, or what is commonly known as the 4Cs of 21st century competencies.

As our children enter tertiary education and the working world, these competencies will enable them to engage and collaborate with people from all walks of life and in all likelihood, succeed in their chosen fields. 

There are many roads to success and GEP is just one of them. It is more important to find the right route that is suited to your child’s learning style, than to squeeze them onto what looks like a speedy route to success. 

June Yong is a mother of three, an educational therapist and owner of Mama Wear Papa Shirt, a blog that discusses parenting and education in Singapore.

SINGAPORE: Workers’ Party (WP) chief Low Thia Khiang will not be contesting the post of secretary-general at the next party election to make way for new blood, he said at the party’s 60th anniversary dinner.

Mr Low said he has achieved what he set out to do – renewal of the Workers’ Party and making “political progress towards democracy” in Singapore. WP now has a new breed of young politicians, he said.

Speaking to more than 1,000 guests and Party members on Friday (Nov 3), Mr Low said it was time for the younger leaders to “take over” the party.

“It is time for these younger leaders to step up to the steering wheel … ready to drive the party forward to continue this walk with Singapore,” said Mr Low.

“I shall therefore not be contesting the post of secretary-general at the next party election to enable the younger generation of party leaders to take over the party completely.”

Channel NewsAsia understands that the next party election is due to be held next year. Mr Low has been the secretary-general of WP for 17 years, since 2001.

NEW TOWN COUNCIL MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

The Workers’ Party also announced it has put in place a new integrated town council management software.

Party Chairman Sylvia Lim said the system, developed under the guidance of Town council vice-chairman, Png Eng Huat, is “comparable to the system used by other town councils”.

Speaking to more than 1,000 guests and party members, Ms Lim said that when the Party won Aljunied GRC in 2011, the WP members of Parliament were “denied the use of the town council management system software” that residents had paid for.

“We coped as best as we could with the system in Hougang SMC (single member constituency) for five years” Ms Lim said.

Despite the “adverse news” on town council management issues, Ms Lim said there have been no disruptions to residents of Aljunied-Hougang and that the town is progressively being renewed and improved.

It was 60 years ago today that lawyer David Marshall formed the Party in front of some 800 members, about a year after he stepped down as Singapore’s first Chief Minister.

The event was held at a banquet hall at the Harbourfront Centre.

SINGAPORE: The number of complaints the PUB receives about low water pressure in Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats has gone down in recent years, although dozens of people are still giving feedback on the issue every month.

In response to queries from Channel NewsAsia, the national water agency said that over the past two years, it has received an average of 85 instances of feedback a month on the issue.

In comparison, then-Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan said in 2015 that over the previous five years, PUB received about 100 pieces of feedback on the issue each month.

Dr Balakrishnan was responding in a written reply to a Parliamentary question by Member of Parliament for Hougang SMC Png Eng Huat, who had asked how such problems are addressed.

PUB told Channel NewsAsia that the causes of low water pressure include “partially closed valves in the water supply pipes to the unit, stoppage of pumps and chokage in tap strainers”.

The agency added that such fixtures are usually installed and maintained by either the Town Council, the building management or unit owner.

“PUB works closely with the Town Councils to attend to feedback received and are able to typically resolve the problem within the day.”

Last month, Channel NewsAsia visited Block 32, Balam Road to see how workers engaged by Marine Parade Town Council (MPTC) were working to fix the problem there.

Five contractors, together with two PUB staff, were seen replacing water pipes on the higher floors of the 10-storey block.

“The Town Council had received feedback from a few units at the mentioned block about the low water pressure, and we had since been working with PUB to resolve the issue,” MPTC public relations manager Tan You Yi said.

“With PUB’s recommendation, we are replacing the common water pipes for these units.”

One resident of Block 32, who wished to remain anonymous, said that the work carried out seems to have resolved the problem.

“Once PUB got involved, things started to move quite quickly with a number of possible solutions being looked at,” he said. “The water pressure is now much improved.”

FRUSTRATIONS REMAIN

While PUB is receiving less feedback about the issue, some residents that Channel NewsAsia spoke to said that they have ongoing difficulties.

Warehouse assistant manager Yeo Shuan Chee, who lives on the 12th and highest floor of Block 211, Tampines Street 23, said he estimates the water pressure in his unit to be two times weaker than at his parents’ home.

“It really becomes inconvenient during showering,” the 47-year-old said. “Especially when I want to wash off the soap and the water pressure becomes super weak. My wife is also starting to get sick of it.”

A resident of Block 715, Bedok Reservoir Road, who asked not to be named, said the weak water pressure in his home has been “extremely” frustrating.

The 35-year-old, who lives on the 12th and highest floor, realised the problem soon after moving in three years ago, when the water pressure “didn’t seem strong enough” compared to his previous home in Marine Parade. 

“Obviously, that’s not a very happy situation,” he said. “Every morning, given the fact that we have to rush for work, I don’t think many of us really have the luxury of spending half an hour in the shower.”

A Whampoa resident, who only wanted to be known as Mr Goh, similarly discovered the problem when moving in one and a half years ago, and now spends a longer time showering and cleaning the toilet.

“Even when the main water switch is turned to the max, the water pressure is very weak as compared to my previous house,” said the 38-year-old, who lives on the 10th floor of a 12-storey block. “I have no choice but to endure the current issue.”

UNCERTAIN WHO TO APPROACH

Mr Yeo said he did not alert PUB or his Town Council because he gathered from online forums that they would “not do anything” about such complaints.

Instead, he installed “laser-cut shower heads” that are supposed to bring up the water pressure, but those did not solve the problem.

Buying a S$388 electric water heater with pump seemed to make things better, Mr Yeo said, but the pressure still drops drastically “when too many people are using water at the same time”.

For Mr Goh, a plumber told him that the issue is common “if you stay on the third-highest level of the block”, while contractors told him the problem could not be fixed.

“I might try to feedback to other agencies, like PUB or the Town Council,” he added.

The Bedok Reservoir resident brought the issue up with PUB but was referred to his Town Council because “it’s not the issue with the flow of water, it’s the issue with the pressure and the pumps”.

When he called Aljunied-Hougang Town Council (AHTC), contractors entered his home and told him his water pressure is “good enough”.

The resident also said he was asked if the problem could be caused by the appliances in his home.

“But that can’t be the case because the appliances we use are relatively expensive ones and not run-of-the-mill,” he added.

And like Mr Goh, the Bedok Reservoir resident was told by external contractors that the problem “has to really do with the fact that you’re on the top floor”.

Because of how high he lives, his unit is one of the first to receive water that flows down from the roof tanks above, leading to an insufficient “build-up of pressure”, he explained.

“So whichever pressure system they use, it is not able to really provide that kind of pressure we need for our flow.”

NO MINIMUM WATER PRESSURE SPECIFIED

Cases like these have led to suggestions that there should be a minimum water pressure standard for HDB homes.

Back in 2015, Mr Png asked if PUB would consider specifying a “minimum pressure for the supply of water to individual HDB flats”.

Dr Balakrishnan replied that the agency is reviewing the requirements, but “will not rush into formulating new regulations”.

According to PUB’s handbook on applications for water supply, “the water pressure available at different parts of the island varies depending on the elevation of the land and on the time of the day”.

“Generally the Water Supply (Network) Department maintains a water pressure capable of supplying directly to water fittings not exceeding 25 metres above mean sea level,” the handbook said.

“This means that water supply to water fittings above this level has to be indirect via water storage tanks.”

While the Code of Practice for Water Services specifies a maximum allowable pressure for water supply to residential units, there are no specified requirements for minimum pressure standards, PUB said.

The agency told Channel NewsAsia that the review “concluded that it was not useful to stipulate a minimum pressure requirement across all residential units as there are different performance specifications for different water fixtures”.

“Setting a minimum pressure may result in fixtures not being able to achieve its water conservation objectives,” it added.

Until something changes, the Bedok Reservoir resident said he will have to get used to his current situation.

He ruled out moving out too. “We didn’t pay a premium for our house just to leave over water pressure, but it does cause a lot of frustration.”