SINGAPORE - Since ActiveSG sports facilities reopened on June 19, ActiveSG has seen about 1,000 cases of people flouting safe management measures.

Examples of such breaches include inter-mixing of players from different courts or booking of time slots at facilities under someone else's name.

ActiveSG chief Sng Hock Lin said at Heartbeat@Bedok on Saturday (July 18): "All the measures are new, not just to the public but to (national agency) Sport Singapore. Naturally, people will take time to adjust to the new measures."

While most of these breaches resulted in warnings or reminders, a few have been suspended from ActiveSG facilities.

One such example was the organiser of a social badminton group. He brought together 29 people - which included a Covid-19 patient - to play at Jurong East Indoor Sport Hall on June 22 but did not ensure they followed safe distancing rules and inter-mingled. The organiser's membership has been suspended and investigations over this incident are ongoing.

"SportSG takes a serious view on people who violate our safety management measures because it compromises our whole national effort to prevent the risk of community transmission or worse, create another cluster," said Sng.

"I hope that ActiveSG and everyone else can learn from this and understand why we need to comply with these measures."

The number of cases of rules being broken was about 30 daily in the first few weeks and has dropped to single digits in the past week, he added.

ActiveSG has also adjusted some measures according to the utilisation rates of its facilities and based on feedback from users and its staff.

Since Thursday (July 16), more slots have been released for those who wish to swim in public pools. They are allowed access from 9am to noon on weekdays in addition to the previous allotted evening timings at the 20 ActiveSG swimming complexes currently in operation.

Lap swimming for seniors will remain from 6.30am to 8.45am.

Sng said: "We want to build confidence in our measures then we can open up our facilities to more people."

But sports facilities are still operating under strict physical distancing measures.

Users are required to book specific time slots on the ActiveSG website, with the exception of stadiums, while the operating capacity is restricted to 10 sq m per person, or a maximum of 50 people per facility.

All sports and recreation venues must also implement SafeEntry for participants and visitors. Temperature screening is also mandatory while employees and visitors are encouraged to use the TraceTogether app.

These arrangements have meant sports facilities are not operating at full capacity - utilisation rate at pools and badminton courts are 90 per cent and 88 per cent respectively - and securing a time slot has become harder for users.

Tee Wooi Seong, 52, used to play badminton with his family once a week at the Heartbeat@Bedok Sports Hall before the circuit breaker, but has found it difficult to book the courts now.

He said: "We understand because the number of courts have been reduced so I'm not complaining about it. We just have to keep trying."