Ruatangata preferred site for new Whangārei Airport

Whangārei Mayor Sheryl Mai at Wednesday's Whangārei Airport relocation decision meeting, with the spade used to turn the original sod for the Onerahi airport in 1963. Photo / Susan Botting

By Susan Botting - Local Democracy Reporter for Northland

A new airport for Whangārei will be at Ruatangata, Whangārei District councillors have decided.

However, one councillor is warning that shifting the city's airport from Onerahi would be a step in the wrong direction in the face of growing international climate change concerns.

Whangārei District councillor Anna Murphy pushed to divert her council's formal decision on Wednesday away from moving further towards legally designating land at Ruatangata for a $150 million-plus replacement Whangārei Airport.

Murphy lost her almost-lone-voice push for councillors to instead formally vote to keep the airport at Onerahi. She said climate change was an issue facing Northland, New Zealand and the world.

"I'm disappointed," Murphy said after the council's future airport site decision meeting.

Murphy said the council could not keep on making the decisions of the sixties when Onerahi airport was built. It could not continue spending money on roads, airport and landfills in the face of climate change. Those were decisions from a different time.

Councillor Anna Murphy at a recent Whangārei District Council meeting. Photo / Michael Cunningham

She said the embedded carbon alone from building a new airport would not work to help reduce council contributions towards limiting global temperature rise.

"Are we just a bunch of frogs sitting in the pot continuing to boil? When are we going to jump out," Murphy said.

Murphy said the council should not look at spending millions on a new airport when fast rail in the future would potentially be able to get people from Whangārei into Auckland airport in an hour – and from there to fly around New Zealand and the world.

Murphy's push came with the accompanying acknowledgement that Onerahi was
operating under dispensation from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and that this might be withdrawn into the future precluding flights.

She said there were other New Zealand airports operating with similar dispensation and it would be unlikely to be withdrawn.

Whangārei's Onerahi airport should stay where it is, councillor Anna Murphy says. Photo / Michael Cunningham

Council airport consultant Stacey Sharp told a recent WDC meeting there had been a very strong level of interest in potential new sites during public consultation.

Sharp said 49 per cent of 610 submissions received during consultation wanted the existing Onerahi airport retained, 45 per cent wanted an alternative airport location investigated and the remainder did not indicate a preference.

Meanwhile, consultation respondents' first choice for an alternate new airport also contrasted with the council's.

The council chose Ruatangata (site nine), then Ruatangata West, and then One Tree Point (site 24A). Respondents chose One Tree Point West (26 per cent of respondents), Ruatangata next (11 per cent of respondents), and then Ruatangata West (5 per cent).

Whangārei's Onerahi airport entrance. Photo / Michael Cunningham

Wednesday's majority council decision, in favour of almost 20 recommendations, formally moved the council towards Ruatangata as the replacement domestic airport site. Murphy was the only councillor against the recommendations.

Voting was done in two parts. Councillors voted 12-1 in favour of the first three recommendations. These formed the scene-setting for why the council was moving towards a new airport and the Ruatangata site.

Fourteen councillors were present but Phil Halse abstained from voting due to a conflict of interest over family property and future Whangārei Airport sites.

Voting was then done on the remaining 16 recommendations covering a raft of other technical actions and formally designating Ruatangata's site nine.

Mayor Sheryl Mai, Deputy Mayor Greg Innes and councillors Gavin Benney, Vince Cocurullo, Nick Connop, Ken Couper, Shelley Deeming, Greg Martin, Carol Peters and Simon Reid were in favour in a 10-3 majority. Murphy, Jayne Golightly and Tricia Cutforth voted against this.

Murphy moved an amendment in favour of staying at Onerahi airport in the midst of the meeting debate. This was seconded by Golightly. However, Murphy's amendment was resoundingly lost.

Mai said Wednesday's decision was not to move from Onerahi. It was a decision to future-proof an airport for Whangārei, further work to definitively be able to decide on the future site and designate the proposed future airport location.

She said the council needed to be organised in advance, should the CAA withdraw its dispensation permission for Onerahi airport's use, due to something "awful" happening.

Having a formally designated airport site would enable the council to show that it had prepared for such an eventuality and seek a much shorter-term CAA dispensation while it built the airport.

Mai said protecting an alternative airport site location meant the community could be confident in Whangārei's long-term air travel access.

Whangārei would become the North's capital, she said, a new airport for the city would be of regional worth.

Council staff will now do more work to ensure there are no "fatal flaws" with Ruatangata's site nine that would preclude its confirmation as the council's definite final airport site choice.

Formal designation would be put in place after that. Upcoming work will include setting up an on-site weather station to gather data about its fog issues compared with the Onerahi airport. Fog emerged as a major community concern for site nine's airport suitability during recent public submissions. Further work will also include looking at different runway configurations.

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