Opening Remarks by Minister Desmond Lee at The 'Long Island' Public Engagement at the URA Centre

May 14, 2024

A very good evening. 

This is the first of a series of closed-door public discussions on our plans for ‘Long Island’. The ‘Long Island’ announcement last November was not a bolt from the blue. It was a continuation from when Prime Minister Lee first spoke about it at the National Day Rally a few years ago. He spoke about the need for long term planning on coastal protection, and the need to start these discussions to facilitate the long decades of work ahead of us.

We are a sovereign island city state, the only one in the world, and we are a low-lying island. The projections for sea level rise can change from time to time. In fact, this year we revised our estimates, and by the end of this century, sea level should rise by about 1.15 metres.

When we couple that with high tide and surging storms, it will rise by as much as 4 to 5 meters above mean sea level today. That is quite significant, especially when you recognise that about 30 per cent of Singapore is below 4 to 5 meters above mean sea level. A lot of the island will be inundated in time, because of sea level rise as a result of climate change. Therefore, coastal protection is a matter of national security, and we will treat it with a level of seriousness.  It will be many years of work.

For the East Coast, which is low lying, we announced last November that we are about to embark on environmental as well as engineering technical studies. This will take about five years of work. Today, we are at a very early stage of ideation, of conceptualisation, of raising concerns and issues we need to tackle, so that over the next five years we can feature all of this in. Thereafter, there is more work to be done. This is a work of many decades, and possibly more than one or two generations before we see it completed.

What is ‘Long Island’ about? ‘Long Island’ is principally about coastal protection. It is a way in which we can protect parts of our island from the sea. That is the key purpose, but in addition to that, we also try to achieve other goals at the same time.

First, because of ‘Long Island’, a freshwater body is enclosed, and that will help us with water security. We have four taps, and one of which is our own water catchment. With ‘Long Island’,  we can create a new reservoir. That will be the first ancillary benefit other than coastal protection.

Second, we also create land. We are not building a sea wall, we are building a sea island, an island that is raised, and will keep the sea out. We will also create land, possibly twice the size of Marina Bay. The land can be used for housing, jobs, green spaces, and so on, land for future generations to have options. That is the second ancillary purpose.

Third, is that with the new waterfront, we have opportunities for recreation. We will not just have an East Coast, but we also have an inner bay, and another waterfront on the other side. It will be different from what we have today, but it will create more opportunities. 

These are the goals we seek to achieve with ‘Long Island’. But how we intend to conceptualise it, what we want to see on ‘Long Island’, what we want to take care of, what issues we could address, these will be part of this series of conversations that we are going to have today, and also in a few more sessions.

Today, we have a very diverse group of people. Some of you live along the East Coast, some of you are very much sports people – water sports, terrestrial sports by the coast. Some of you are concerned about heritage issues, greenery; some have concerns about marine ecology and conservation; some are students whose schools are along that stretch. Let us respect the diversity in the room and allow everybody to have an opportunity to speak and engage.

My colleagues are here to listen, and to take the ideas, concerns and feedback back to the planners, to have the benefit of your observations.

I saw many stickers on the large posters outside; where you live, how often you go to the East Coast, what is your favourite spot, and what you would like to see in the future. Some of you talked about food outlets, about water sports, running track and so on. Part of our aim for doing ‘Long Island’ is to protect what we have today. It will not be exactly the same, but we will try to keep the character of East Coast as far as possible, as it is.

We had studied a couple of options, and one of which is ‘Long Island’. The other would have been having a long sea wall. The sea wall would have been far easier to execute – a wall running from around the city area all the way to Tanah Merah and beyond. A long wall 13 kilometres or longer, and three-metres or taller, with about a dozen pumping stations every kilometre or so, that would have been the most direct option.

But the impact of that will totally change the character of East Coast. Instead of seeing the beach and water in front of you unimpeded, instead of having jogging paths, you will have a wall on what today is East Coast Park. It will destroy the whole character of the East Coast. Therefore, these are the options to be weighed, and when we decided on ‘Long Island’, we wanted to keep the character of the place as well.

Let us have a good, robust conversation, engage with each other, and have some useful takeaways that will inform us for the work ahead of us. Thank you for joining us, we look forward to hearing from you.