Massive construction at Berlayar Creek

I was astonished at the scale of construction for the new boardwalk at Berlayar Creek!

This Creek has the last mangroves on our Southern mainland, and some sandy and rocky shores. Plans for the boardwalk was announced much earlier and work on it was announced recently (see MPA notice below).

The drawings on the information board at the site suggest a slim boardwalk that doesn't impact the existing mangroves. Earlier media reports on the boardwalk assured that "construction work would be carried out carefully to ensure that the ecosystem would not be affected". The 960m Berlayer Creek Mangrove Trail is touted as an "'Eco-Educational' mangrove trail starts with a lushly landscaped Entrance Plaza at the open area surrounding the future Labrador Park MRT Station."

However, an astonishing extent of large steel girders have been placed very close to one another along the entire boardwalk route.

The entire structure was large enough to support several three large cranes, plus lots of other equipment.

There's lots of piling, drilling going on near the mangroves. The visitor at the green hoarding shows the scale of the construction. All along the mangroves on the landward side there is heavy machinery and tall piles of earth.

Having seen boardwalks being sensitively constructed on shores like Chek Jawa and Sungei Buloh, I'm quite surprised at the massive scale of the work on this boardwalk. Here's an overall view of the boardwalk construction at Berlayar.

The Berlayar Creek shore was the site of the last Guides of Singapore Shores field training and has lots of interesting seashore habitats. I even had the precious opportunity to kayak up the mangroves here. Let's hope these will recover after the construction is completed.

Since I was there, I had a quick look at the massive reclamation works on the Pasir Panjang Container Terminal extension next to Labrador from the lookout point at the top of the hill. Labrador shore lies just behind the T-shaped jetty in the photo.

A closer look at some of the heavy duty machinery near the shore, with a short stretch of orange silt traps?

And big piles of sand for the reclamation.

Construction of Boardwalk off Labrador Park
from Port Marine Notice No. 21 of 2011 dated 04 Mar 2011

With effect from 04 Mar 11 to 31 May 11. 24 hours daily including Sundays and Public Holidays. Off Labrador Park (see attached chartlet):

The shore works will entail the installation and extraction of temporary deck post, installation and strengthening of bored pile structures. The perimeter of the boardwalk area will be illuminated by yellow blinker lights. The trucks will transport the construction equipment and materials to the work site via the road access. Further general enquiries relating to the project can be directed to Mr AK Bayi, the project manager at Tel: 9787 9059 (email:mwbani@mypenta.net)

Construction of Boardwalk off Labrador Park
from Port Marine Notice No. 44 of 2011 dated 14 Apr 2011

This is a revision of Port Marine Notice No. 21 of 2011. The working area and the working period have been revised.

With effect from 18 Apr 11 to 17 Oct 11. 24 hours daily including Sundays and Public Holidays. Off Labrador Park (see attached chartlet):

The shore works will entail the installation and extraction of temporary deck post, installation and strengthening of bored pile structures. The perimeter of the boardwalk area will be illuminated by yellow blinker lights. The trucks will transport the construction equipment and materials to the work site via the road access. Further general enquiries relating to the project can be directed to Mr AK Bayi, the project manager at Tel: 9787 9059 (email: AK.Bay@downeredi.com)

Related posts

• New nature walkway at Labrador, Berlayar Creek on wildfilms
• Work to begin at boardwalk at Berlayar Creek
• What can we see at Berlayar Creek?
• And other field trips to Berlayar Creek.

Related links

• Work starts on nature walk at Labrador and Berlayar Creek Straits Times 27 Jul 10;
• URA press release 27 Jul 10, with more details about the project.
• Nature walkway will link Alexandra to Keppel From garden to creek to harbour - all in just 2km Liaw Wy-Cin, Straits Times 15 May 08