Dear Sir/Madam,

In the article “Lively debate over fate of cemetery” (Sunday Times, 20 Nov 2011), it was wrongly reported that an audience member had asked “Why has the Heritage Society stayed so silent on this issue?”. Our video recordings show that the person was referring, instead, to the National Heritage Board.

SHS would like to take this opportunity to state its efforts in the Bukit Brown issue thus far. These efforts have been three pronged.

Firstly, SHS has served as a resource network for the grave documentation process. SHS believes that documentation is crucial to heritage preservation and should be undertaken regardless of whether the road is built or not. To this end, it has supported the documentation process led by Dr Hui Yew-foong by spreading the call for fieldworkers. SHS will continue to support this documentation process.

Secondly, SHS has sought to raise heritage concerns to different government agencies. It has done this in a series of meetings with the Ministry of National Development (MND), the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and the Land Transport Authority (LTA) in recent months.

Finally, SHS seeks to raise public awareness over the rich heritage of Bukit Brown. To this end, Dr Terence Chong and Dr Chua Ai Lin have made the case for preservation in their article “Saving Bukit Brown” (Straits Times, 17 Nov 2011). SHS is also the co-organizer of Saturday’s symposium Spaces for the Living: A Discussion on Bukit Brown Cemetery held at the Asian Civilisations Museum. The book “Spaces of the Dead: A Case from the Living” documenting Bukit Brown Cemetery and other cemeteries in Singapore was published by the SHS in 2011.

SHS will continue in these efforts as best as it can