CENTRAL Coast Council hopes for a Warnervale regional airport to rival Newcastle Airport should be stopped before millions more dollars are wasted, NSW Premier Mike Baird has been told.
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A regional airport is “not viable, desirable or necessary”, Yarramalong turf farmer Laurie Eyes told Mr Baird in a letter after a three-year freedom of information battle with the former Wyong Shire Council that has raised serious questions about the regional airport plan, and a proposed aircraft manufacturing project at Warnervale.
The future of the Warnervale site is on hold pending the outcome of a NSW Government review of legislation currently restricting the council’s regional airport expansion plans.
But it has not stopped the council from proposing to spend another $6 million at Warnervale, despite the government rejecting council lobbying to have the regional airport included on a Central Coast regional plan released in October.
Mr Eyes’ strong opposition is backed by a Newcastle Airport submission to the government in 2016 emphasising that the Central Coast was within its “core catchment”.
“Newcastle Airport should be part of the Central Coast development strategy now and into the future,” airport chief executive Dr Peter Cook said.
“The critical mass of operations of over 500,000 to 1 million passengers enables more investment to be achieved and greater scale efficiencies to deliver wider regional outcomes than what otherwise could be achieved.”
Mr Eyes wrote to Mr Baird after the Premier visited the Warnervale site in October to announce it was “a great day for the Central Coast” because “thousands of jobs” would flow from an American aircraft manufacturing company’s proposed $100 million relocation to Warnervale.
Mr Baird’s office later distanced the Premier from the project after the company, Amphibian Aerospace Industries, confirmed it had never built a plane and its development application in December proposed a $2.84 million project with only 27 jobs.
Mr Eyes has called on the Premier and the NSW Government to block Central Coast Council’s push to repeal the Warnervale Airport Restrictions Act, which limits operations at the Warnervale site. Mr Eyes was instrumental in having the Act passed in 1996 in response to previous attempts by the council to establish a regional airport in an area also identified as a developing residential area.
“The way to call a halt to a regional airport is for the Government to retain the Warnervale Airport Restrictions Act as a minimum, then that’s the finish of it,” Mr Eyes said.
The council was fined $3000 in October after Mr Eyes complained to the Department of Planning after the former Wyong Council spent more than $1 million extending the runway in 2015, contravening the Act, and cleared a wetland area without development consent.
Mr Eyes’ freedom of information battles have revealed incorrect public statements by the former Wyong Council about major projects including the regional airport, a proposed regional university. His work also revealed the council’s involvement in the selection of Kangy Angy for a major rail infrastructure project despite the site’s significant issues.
The former Wyong Council turned its sights to Warnervale after abandoning controversial plans for a regional airport at nearby Bushells Ridge. This occurred after Mr Eyes revealed obstacles, including the need for extraordinary excavation of the ridge. The council spent $20 million on land and preliminary works for the Bushells Ridge proposal.
The council’s website says a regional airport at Warnervale would provide “a significant economic boost to the Central Coast economy, create 600 jobs, and boost tourism”.
“This is a concept for a smaller regional airport with one runway that would service the needs of the growing population of the Central Coast,” it said.
In August the council changed Warnervale Airport’s name to Central Coast Airport.
In December Mr Eyes won a long-running NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal appeal against the council’s refusal to release a 2013 feasibility study for development options at the Warnervale site.
Warnervale airport made a loss of $635,000 in 2015/16.
In a statement on Monday the council said it was in the process of finalising a draft masterplan for the airport site, “maintaining the focus at this stage on its development as a general aviation airport”.
“Council will shortly be going to the market through an expression of interest process seeking interest from parties looking to join the general aviation hub,” the council said.