Airport consultation report:

incomplete and selective at best

Chair of the Community Environment Network, Mr Gary Chestnut, has addressed Administrator Rik Hart at the April Central Coast Council meeting last month to highlight shortcomings in the council’s airport masterplan, and that the consultation report was 'incomplete and selective at best', while unlawful behaviour continued.

1 May 2024

 

MR CHESTNUT told Council Administrator Rik Hart at a community forum that the current report was not providing him, nor the community, with accurate or sufficient information so that he could make an informed decision.

 

Mr Chestnut highlighted that CEN had been writing to Mr Hart, council’s CEO Mr David Farmer and local politicians since 2021 about the council’s allegedly unlawful actions on Conservation land adjacent to the airport at Warnervale.

 

“Council’s Draft Airport Masterplan has six fundamental oversights,” he said. “Having 1 or 2 oversights may not change the outcome of a public exhibition but 6 major oversights potentially means the plan may not provide accurate or sufficient information to enable the community to make an informed decision when they prepared their submissions.

 

“Respectfully, I request that, as the Administrator, you defer adopting the current recommendation until such time that Mr Farmer has considered the request that:

 

*Council seeks independent legal advice on Council’s actions at the Central Coast Airport in respect to the implications of ‘existing use’ and Council’s implementation of ‘Part 5 Activity Assessment’.

 

*Subject to the legal advice that this may require the redrafting and re-exhibition of a Draft Central Coast Airport Masterplan.”

 

Mr Chestnut drew the Administrator’s attention to CEN’s analysis of historical aerial photographs of activities at the airport since the 1960s.

 

“The analysis shows that the former Wyong Shire Council breached the Environment Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (The Act) on no less than twelve (12) occasions.

 

“The Department of Planning fined the former Council $3,000 and required it to undertake a formal remediation of unauthorised work.

 

“The unlawful behaviour of the former Wyong Council has continued with Central Coast Council. Based on public information this council appears to have breached the Act on no less than three (3) occasions.”

 

After the meeting Mr Chestnut said it was interesting to note that Mr Hart acknowledged that the CEN submission ‘has a different point of view that keeps staff on their toes’. However, the CEN presentation at the Council meeting was not a submission. It was to inform Mr Hart that, after the close of submissions, the CEN had completed a detailed historical air photo analysis which resulted in a comprehensive letter to CEO Mr Farmer.

 

Mr Chestnut said, “If I did not know about Porters Creek Wetland, the current length of the authorised runway as defined under ‘existing use’ and ‘Part 5 Activity Assessment’ or the alleged unlawful actions of council, I would conclude that this masterplan is in the best interests of the community but that is not the case.

 

“The Council report should have been deferred by Mr Hart particularly given the fact no-one present at the Council meeting had the opportunity to review the 20-page letter to Mr Farmer.

 

“The letter to MrFarmer letter presents prima facia evidence, which is evidence that speaks for itself, that Council has not considered the basic principles of ‘existing use’ at the site or Council’s abject failure to undertake a ‘Part 5 Activity Assessment’. No one at the Council meeting had addressed or made any comment on any of the six (6) major oversights in the exhibited draft masterplan or the fact that, by Council not undertaking a ‘Part 5 Activity Assessment’, it has allegedly cleared 2.25 ha of endangered ecological community in the same area that the former Council was fined $3,000”.