It is very heartening to read Forum letters advocating that we leave spontaneous greenery to flourish, now that we are coming out of the circuit breaker period (Allow natural greenery in public spaces to flourish, June 5).

I wish to provide two examples of potential cost savings had this been done.

These happened during the Main Upgrading Programme that took place in 1994 at the precinct where I used to live in Queenstown. One was an extensive retaining wall on a slope above a street which had spontaneously transformed over the years into a wonderful tapestry of ferns and wildflowers, all of which were removed towards the final stages of works to reveal the original barren granite blocks.

The second example is another slope nearby, this time without a retaining wall but with well-established vegetation which was promptly ripped out with the intention to replant the slope with a single species of grass.

By the time this happened, it was already June, and there was heavy rain during the days after the existing greenery was removed and before the new planting could take root.

This resulted in some very serious erosion, to the point where workers had to continually replace the grass and replenish the soil that kept being washed away, as well as repeatedly clean and dislodge the open drain under the slope where everything ended up.

Would it not have been so much better if these unnecessary works were left out of the scope of works in the first place?

There could have been savings of tens of thousands of dollars just for these alone if you were to factor in not just the works themselves but the delays incurred, and the additional manpower needed to rectify the damage caused by the erosion. Think of the savings that could have been achieved if you were to multiply this by the number of similar works all over the country.

Spontaneous growth, by its very nature, is already optimised for its location, so we can expect eventual maintenance costs to be minimal as well. There is room to work towards a good balance between planned and spontaneous greenery, just as with built environments in the best cities around the world.

Huang Eu Chai