News - Airport

Attended my first Airport Noise Meeting 8 Feb 2007.

The meeting seemed fairly heavily weighted towards industry and airport people, with community representatives maybe a third of those there, and just seven of the invitees versus 32 airport industry and government people...

Given these meetings are held from 2pm in the afternoon on weekdays, they mean I have to basically take a half-day off work to attend - a point I made at the meeting. I was told by the Airport's Noel McCann that this is because many of the industry attendees have to fly back to interstate home bases after the meeting. I made the point that they are paid to be there, whereas community reps are there on their own time. I got an assurance that it would be 'considered' prior to the next meeting.

The Airport stated they had received 122 complaints for the year to date, mostly from Jerrabomberra and Hackett, with 25 from the one person.

Urban development

Some time was spent discussing the current campaign between the airport and Jerrabomberra developers over the Tralee development proposal.The Airport intend holding a meeting at Jerrabomberra Hall on 28-2-07. Margot from Jerrabomberra Residents Association said that clashes with they monthly meeting, preventing attendance. Curious coincidence...

The JRA also complained that they have been misrepresented in Airport mailouts to Jerra residents, with respect to their reversing their position that previously opposed further housing development in Jerra and Tralee. They did not however explain how it was that they were misrepresented... Queanbeyan Mayor Frank Pangello also stated support for the development and stated that anyone moving into Tralee would know what they were getting into.

I stated that this is rubbish, and that when I was Councillor in Maroochy Shire my electorate included the Sunshine Coast Airport and surrounds, including the new development of Twin Waters. As soon as people started buying into that estate, the more affluent and educated buyers immediately started campaigning for construction of a new main runway on a different alignment that would take traffic away from them but over the older area of Mudjimba.

The key concern for Gungahlin with all of this is that any significant growth in noise complaints from residents under the flight path may lead to 'noise sharing' which may mean more flight paths over our area.

Flight paths and movements

The airport is now the 'alternate airport' for Sydney and Melbourne freight 747s, meaning if they are diverted, they can land here instead of diverting further afield like to Brisbane. A new GPS-guided approach is now available that leads to very accurate weaving around the residential areas when on final to reduce noise impacts (because for some reason people believe aircraft noise doesn't travel sideways...). This system is on the 737-800s, Q400 props, and Virgin Embrauer jets so far.

Movement number dropped a lot in the 97-05 Master Plan due to the shift to larger aircraft.

Majura Road interchange works look likely to be included in the next ACT budget with stage 1 around $15M.

There was some debate over why the Airport isn't keeping/distributing minutes of these meetings. They said previous minutes were being used to "intimidate members over their positions on issues". I said that they only need to generalise the minutes rather than stated explicit remarks from individuals, and if this was done there should be no reason not to maintain minutes, in the interests of accountability. Airport said they'd take legal advice.

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