WP’s Jamus Lim seeks to address residents’ long-standing frustration in lift breakdowns

The Workers’ Party (WP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Sengkang GRC Jamus Lim is looking to make progress in addressing the long-standing plight of residents at Anchorvale Vista estate where lift breakdowns are a common occurrence.

In a Facebook post on Friday (2 Apr), Assoc Prof Lim shared that he and his team recently only managed to cover the top five floors at Block 312A in Anchorvale during their house visits, though they had much deeper engagements with the residents there.

“But there is no substitute for earnest, well-intentioned feedback, and so my job was just to listen intently and take notes for possible action,” he added.

According to Assoc Prof Lim, a recurrent problem for residents living in that block has been the frequent lift breakdowns. In fact, he noted that this issue has been a recurring one for the entire cluster at Anchorvale Vista.

He said that some residents would even go as far as to use the stairs if they had an important meeting to attend, for fear of being trapped in a malfunctioning elevator.

Assoc Prof Lim continued, “These blocks were designed with three elevator shafts—and given how there are only six units per floor—you’d think that lift loads would be totally manageable.

“But we’ve repeatedly received complaints about how these cars would frequently go out of commission, even when maintenance was always performed on schedule.”

He stated that the problem appears to be compounded by the fact that the lifts are not all that old. Upon inspection, he found out that the lifts still have seven years of shell life remaining. Hence, he opined that outright replacement does not seem to be on the cards, especially given their cost.

Assoc Prof Lim went on to say that each block’s challenges are problematic in their own way, just like Russian writer Leo Tolstoy’s unhappy families.

“But our plan is to deliberate this issue at length with the town council management, to see if we are able to resolve these lift woes in a more definitive and permanent way,” he assured.

Assoc Prof Lim concluded his post saying that he hopes he and his team will be able to make progress on such a long-standing frustration for the residents at Anchorvale Vista.