New Bidadari Park, equal in size to 18 football fields, adds a large swathe of green serenity to Singapore

The image of clean, green Singapore has been enhanced with the opening of Bidadari Park on September 3, 2024. Marking the inauguration of the park, Minister for National Development Desmond Lee posted on Instagram: “Envisioned as a ‘Community in a Garden’, Bidadari estate features communal spaces integrated with homes and facilities in a garden-like setting.”

Listing details of the new park’s attractions, CNA reported that the park “takes up more than 10 per cent of Bidadari’s land area and spans more than 18 football fields”.

Minister Lee informed on Instagram: “Visitors can enjoy a total of 5.2km of experiential trails within the [Bidadari] Park – such as the Woodland Experiential Trail, which features clusters of majestic Tembusu and Ficus trees and the Adventure Playwoods, where children can also enjoy exploratory play in nature.”

He wrote: “The Park’s scenic Alkaff Lake is a first-of-its-kind multifunctional drainage infrastructure – it is both a recreation space and also a stormwater retention pond that helps reduce the risk of flash floods.”

Promising more to come, the minister wrote: “We will continue to enhance the estate – residents can look forward to the Heritage Walk linking Woodleigh MRT Station to Bidadari Park from 4Q 2024, as well as the Bidadari Memorial Garden, which will retain the estate’s rich heritage, from early 2025.”

The CNA report said that the new Bidadari Park was inspired by the Hundred Acre Wood, the forest of the beloved children’s literature character Winnie the Pooh.

The location: “Bounded by Bidadari Park Drive, Bartley Walk and Upper Aljunied Road and Sang Nila Utama Road, the park’s closest MRT stations are Bartley MRT and Woodleigh MRT, which is located opposite Alkaff Lake.”

Quoting Lee at the opening ceremony, the report said that the former Bidadari cemetery was marked for housing development in the early Noughties. While it waited to be developed — the cemetery graves had been exhumed by then — the area became covered with naturally growing greenery.

“So, when developing this Bidadari estate, special attention was paid to integrate green spaces within the estate,” the minister was quoted as saying. “And there was already a lot of existing greenery, and some of the trees here pre-date the estate by many, many years.”

Therefore, greenery was always an integral part of the estate master plan. The Bidadari housing area was unveiled in 2013; its four districts have 12 Build-to-Order (BTO) developments. There will be a total of 8,872 flats in the estate, of which about 75 per cent are complete.

CNA said: “Bidadari Park was a joint effort by Singapore’s Housing and Development Board (HDB), National Parks Board (NParks), national water agency PUB and National Heritage Board.”

“In the planning and design of the park, we have actively engaged the Nature Society (Singapore) to help us gain a deeper understanding of the natural terrain and the rich biodiversity of the area. With this information, we have actually used these qualities and features to design our park spaces to serve the needs of residents,” said Wan Khin Wai, Chief Architect and Director of Design Development under HDB, speaking to the media at the park inauguration.