Reply To Forum Letter In The Straits Times

Reply To Forum Letter In The Straits Times: "How are sports facilities fees set?"

In response to a Forum Letter in The Straits Times ("How are sports facilities fees set?", 19 July 2013):

We refer to Mr Koh Bock Heng’s letter, “How are sports facilities fees set?”, dated 19 July 2013.  We would like to assure Mr Koh and members of the public that the Singapore Sports Council (SSC) is committed to providing affordable sports facilities for the community.

SSC does not factor in capital cost recovery in determining its fees and charges as public sports infrastructure are for the public good. SSC charges heavily subsidised nominal fees, to defray a small part of its operating costs.

We set fees based on the general principle of per person cost across all our facilities. So for example, table tennis fees, which is played by two or more people, are set at $1.50 and $3.20 per hour during off peak and peak hours respectively.  Our pool charges are $1.50 and $2.50 per person on weekdays and weekends respectively.

Senior citizens aged 55 and above currently enjoy SSC’s facilities for free or at a concession during off-peak hours for sports such as tennis, squash, badminton, table-tennis, petanque and gateball. We appreciate Mr Koh’s feedback to extend senior citizen concessions for table tennis during peak hours. SSC will review this request holistically to see how we can better encourage more seniors to live better through sports.

We thank Mr Koh for his feedback.

Alvin Hang
Director, Corporate Communications and Relations
Singapore Sports Council