BATHURST Regional Council will consider establishing a new Airport Users’ Group as a six-year war of words with local pilots over hangar leases and tenure deals shows no sign of ending.
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Airport users went public last month with their grievances when the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) of Australia executive director Benjamin Morgan told a media conference that running an aviation business in Bathurst had become impossible due to skyrocketing fees.
AOPA met council staff on the same day and tabled a list of recommendations including setting all leases at $6 per square metre and providing users long-term leases of between 50 and 99 years.
AOPA claims council reneged on an agreement to take those recommendations to a full council meeting [a claim council rejects] and has upped the ante in its campaign by urging its member pilots to bypass Bathurst Aerodrome while also writing to Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack asking him to suspend $1.8 million in government grants for upgrades at the airport.
“To provide $1.8 million in 2018-19 federal funding for an airport which has both declining passenger movements and large-scale disputes with its general aviation leaseholders can only be seen as rewarding a council for poor planning and inappropriate investment decisions,” Mr Morgan wrote.
But council general manager David Sherley has hit back at AOPA, expressing “concern at the misinformation being put out in the public domain”.
Mr Sherley said hangar leases ranged greatly in length of tenancy so could not be offered at a standard rate and that council over the past five years had been “undertaking a program of major renewal” to ensure the airport’s long-term future.
He was disappointed by AOPA’s call for pilots to bypass Bathurst and surprised by their bid to have federal funding suspended.
“Council is surprised at representations to reduce the service levels and potentially the long-term commercial viability of the airport by a group that says it represents the industry,” Mr Sherley said.
Meanwhile, a report to Wednesday night’s council meeting by engineering services director Darren Sturgiss has recommended a working party consider the re-establishment of an Airport Users’ Group.
Mr Sturgiss said the group would “facilitate discussion with users and the community as to the operations of the aerodrome”.
A previous users’ group had not met “for some time”.
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