Opponents to shifting Northland rescue helicopter base holding public meeting tonight

Opponents to shifting the Northland Rescue Helicopter base from Kensington, above, to Onerahi Airport are holding a public meeting tonight.

By Susan Botting, Local Democracy Reporter, Northland.

Opponents to moving the Northland Rescue Helicopter base to Onerahi Airport want Whangārei District Council action on four key concerns ahead of a public meeting tonight.

Opponents of the Northland Emergency Services Trust (NEST) helicopter base shift from Kensington want their concerns addressed around helicopter noise, the new airport noise management committee, helicopter hover training and engine testing, plus what will happen to an Onerahi rescue helicopter base if the airport shifts.

Airport neighbour and NEST Action group member Paul Doherty said legal advice around resource management and public law had been sought.

Doherty said the NEST Action group was 100 per cent in favour of having the Northland Rescue Helicopter service. It did not however, want its base to be in a residential neighbourhood.

Whangārei Mayor Sheryl Mai has been invited to the meeting, but will not be attending.

She was one of three WDC politicians last month appointed to the recently re-established airport noise management committee. The meeting is to be at St Stephens church hall and on-line via Zoom.

The group wants Whangārei District Plan noise budgets that control the overall amount of noise produced to also include non-emergency flights. This type of flights includes hospital transfers, which have made up an increasing proportion of NEST activity in recent years. They are part of the trust's actions alongside the smaller but critical activity portion of emergency rescue trips such as the Far North March 20 Enchanter rescue and serious vehicle crashes.

Doherty said the group also wanted confirmation the emergency services base would be shifted from Onerahi if and when a new site for an airport went ahead.

He said the group wanted the newly formally-revived airport noise management committee to have an independent chair, not a WDC councillor. This had been the case with the original terms of reference for the committee underpinning its previous existence.

WDC Cr Phil Halse, the new airport noise management committee chair will be at the public meeting.

The group also wanted the committee to have three airport sector representatives, three community representatives and one councillor as had been the terms of reference requirements with its earlier existence – not the three WDC councillor positions that had been appointed at a March council meeting.

Cr Tricia Cutforth was the third of those appointees and has been invited to tonight's meeting. Onerahi airport is in WDC's Okara ward. Ward councillor Vince Cocurullo is also attending the public meeting.

WDC has continually highlighted the need for the council to have a communication programme for Onerahi airport neighbours to address expected noise concerns.

However, helicopter shift opponents initiated an April 5 meeting with the Mayor and Okara ward councillors outlining NEST action group's call for action on its four key concerns was presented.

Meanwhile, 100 people turned out to an initial public meeting about the helicopter shift in
November.

The council has chosen Onerahi as NEST's "most likely" place to relocate its base to because the airport allowed it to meet full compliance with civil aviation regulations in almost all weather conditions. It has been at its Kensington base since 1998 with its lease expiring in May next year.

■ Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air