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Page 11
 
 
 
 

Wanton Destruction 

First, it was announced that the old market at Pulau Tikus would be demolished. Then followed similar announcements affecting the Edwardian Campbell Street market and the Ayer Itam market

And now the Prangin Road Market (Sia Boey) is to go

The bureaucrats simply think up something and lo and behold, without public consultation or discussion, a grand plan cooked up in some bureaucrat’s office is announced. We saw that in the disastrous and meaningless "Pedestrian Mall" which turned out to be nothing but a collection of costly paving stones and fancy street lamps stuck on Campbell Street, reducing parking and killing business in the area

A market is the centre of a community of interdependent businesses: - sundry shops, soya sauce (tau eu), ready made clothes, coffee shops offering a variety of breakfast foods,  barbers, medicine shops, men selling newspapers, joss sticks and other prayer paraphernalia, and much besides. To remove the market is to destroy the peripheral trades; it is heartless in these difficult times of economic recession

We have seen that happen with the closure of the Rex Cinema – the coffee shops in the immediate area have closed down

Komtar, this monstrous encrustation on the face of Penang, a symbol of Malaysian "talk big," now threatens to spread its tentacles to the Prangin Road Market area, closing even more roads to traffic. The question is, why does this administration continue with the grandiose dream of the previous administration?

When will council give up its bureaucratic ways? 

A petition addressed to the Yang Dipertua of the MPPP dated September 1999 considered that the proposed Campbell Street market closure was insensitive to the needs of women and other shoppers. But to these and others appeals not the slightest attention is paid. When will Council submit its ideas to the scrutiny of public examination? When will it open its doors for public comments and suggestions? An end should be put to arbitrariness.#