Coverage map

Beats and planning areas

Beat 01 — Municipal after hours — covers town council notices, void-deck bookings, and estate-level maintenance advisories across central and northern planning areas, including Novena, Toa Payoh, and Bishan when documents reference those estates by name.

Beat 02 — Transport and streets — follows LTA road advisories, bus service changes, and MRT station access works. Coverage extends islandwide when the advisory is national; local context paragraphs are added only when the desk has verified on-site conditions.

Beat 03 — Schools and young people — tracks MOE releases, principal letters, and youth programme schedules. We do not cover internal school discipline or identify students. Exam-season logistics are handled with timetable citations only.

Beat 04 — Hawker trade and small business — reads NEA tenancy lists, stall handover notices, and small-shop licensing updates. We name stalls and operators only when they appear on public registers or speak on the record.

Beat 05 — Environment and green spaces — matches NParks closures, tree works, and PUB drainage projects to affected parks and waterways. Photographs supplement text when the Photo Desk has a frame from the same evening.

Beat 06 — Culture, faith and community life — verifies festival timings, temple and church notices, and community-led events with organisers directly. Embargo requests are honoured; corrections run when schedules shift after publication.

When two beats share a planning area on the same night, the final file may carry a context note rather than duplicate items — readers see one indexed entry with cross-beat references in the source list.

What we do not cover

Crime reporting with identifying details, medical emergencies, and live police operations are outside this desk's remit. Stock prices, product reviews, and sponsored content are not published. We do not reproduce social media posts without on-record confirmation from the account holder or an official channel.

International wire copy is not republished unless a Singapore-specific document makes it relevant — and even then, the local document leads the piece.

If you believe a beat should expand, write to [email protected] with the document type and planning area. The desk reviews coverage quarterly and updates this page when beats change.

Central planning areas often appear in more than one beat on the same evening — a road closure near a school zone may surface under transport and schools simultaneously. The final file deduplicates reader-facing headlines while preserving both source lists on the indexed card.

We do not publish completeness percentages or ranking tables. The coverage map is a statement of editorial intent: which document classes we chase, which we decline, and which planning areas appear most often in verified notices rather than in desk preference.

Seasonal adjustments

Exam seasons increase schools beat traffic; festival calendars expand community beat checks. Coverage map annotations in handover notes flag these shifts — the public page updates when a seasonal pattern persists beyond one month.

North-east and east planning areas appear when official notices name them; absence from this page does not mean absence from the index if a document reference is valid.

Islandwide advisories from national agencies publish with national datelines; local context paragraphs are added only when beat editors verify neighbourhood impact on the ground or through clerk confirmation.

Western and southern planning areas follow the same rule — named in index when documents reference them, not pre-listed for appearance alone.