Local contractor, Swee Hong, has been awarded a tender by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) to build a dual four-lane road at a cost of $134.7 million. The project is expected to be completed by the end of 2017.

According to The Straits Times, the new road, measuring around 2km in length, will connect MacRitchie Viaduct to the Adam Flyover in a bid to ease peak-hour congestion on Lornie Road and the Pan-Island Expressway (PIE). The local paper also reported that 4,153 of the 100,000 graves at Bukit Brown will be exhumed by the fourth quarter of this year.

1,263 graves have already been claimed, while the rest have been documented by a committee led by anthropologist Dr Hui Yew-Foong from the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Dr Hui will lead a ten men team to monitor families that are exhuming their ancestral graves.

"We want to record the rituals or ceremonies that are conducted before the exhumation so that we can preserve the memories, heritage and traditions," said Dr Hui. They will also record any artefacts that may be unearthed, like jewellery, bangles or miniature pots.

The project was first announced in 2011, sparking an intense debate between heritage and nature groups and the Government.