WYONG Shire Council plans for a regional airport at Warnervale ignored “the elephant in the room” only an hour away at Newcastle Airport, a submission to the Central Coast Regional Plan objecting to a Warnervale airport has said.
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Wyong Council’s projections for operating expenses and profits flew in the face of the reality of Newcastle’s figures, long time Warnervale airport opponent Laurie Eyes said in a submission.
Wyong Council has argued its proposed Warnervale regional airport should be included in the Central Coast Regional Plan. But Mr Eyes said the airport was “not viable, desirable or necessary”.
He used figures from Newcastle Airport’s 2015 financial statement to show it had operating revenue of $23.93 million for the year, with expenses of $19.379 million, to give a profit of $4.55 million on 1.144 million passengers.
“Wyong Council has predicted a profit of $6.395 million for 2025 based on 300,000 passengers,” Mr Eyes said.
“This is not credible when you consider Newcastle’s numbers.”
The council has argued the Central Coast is the ninth largest region in Australia, but the only one without a regional airport. A future airport would “likely be funded and built via a public/private partnership and inject around $250 million annual into the regional economy”.
But Mr Eyes said the council’s history on airpoirts was not encouraging.
In November 2013 the council announced it was building a regional airport at Kiar Ridge and had paid $17 million – more than double the Valuer General’s valuation and without any substantial studies or independent land valuation – for land to build it.
The Kiar Ridge proposal collapsed, in part, because of the likely cost of removing the ridge top to build an airstrip.
Mr Eyes said a recent airport study found Newcastle had the lowest passenger costs of any airport studied, so that “Newcastle clearly has a lot of room to move in sending any upstart Warnervale airport to the wall”.
