It is heartening to read that all town councils here, regardless of whether they are run by the People's Action Party or Workers' Party, have set aside or are spending substantial sums of money to upgrade their lifts to ensure a safer ride for residents ("$450m set aside to boost safety of HDB lifts"; Sept 20).

This is timely, given unfortunate incidents involving lifts recently.

Now, if party lines can be set aside, better economies of scale and savings can be achieved in lift upgrading projects across all HDB estates, by way of a joint tender between PAP and WP-run town councils.

If this initial exercise works, the parties can explore appointing one or two major contractors to replace all lifts with a few standard designs, which can help to further cut maintenance issues and costs.

There are more than a million HDB flats, housing 80 per cent of our resident population.

By achieving cost savings through lift upgrading, we can have a better quality of life, obtain more value for public funds and look after our rapidly ageing population.

Hong Chou Hui