KEY POINTS:
Waitakere City Council is reviewing its six-year bid to secure Whenuapai Air Force Base for an airport as its neighbouring council calls for the Government to step in and stop a "useless exercise".
Waitakere City's push to change its District Plan to protect 273ha of the base for
airport purposes was to be heard by independent commissioners over five days starting February 9.
The proposal has drawn more than 2700 submissions.
However, Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse said yesterday that the council would consider postponement of the hearings in light of uncertainty about whether the Air Force was pulling out of Whenuapai.
Defence Minister Dr Wayne Mapp told the Herald that a paper was being prepared in the first quarter of this year on the implications of keeping Whenuapai as a base, instead of withdrawal and consolidation of air facilities at Ohakea in the Manawatu between 2014 and 2018.
Dr Mapp said the implications included a much needed multi-million-dollar upgrade of the main Whenuapai runway which had been "let run down".
"On the other hand, there are savings as well because we do not have to spend a lot of money at Ohakea on building other hangars and accommodation."
Dr Mapp said Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey and the council knew the Government's long-stated position was to retain Whenuapai as a base. Asked about the February 9 hearings, Mr Mapp said: "It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to have to hold the hearing.
"They are a local authority with their powers but I do think the council needs to take on board what the Government's policy is.
"The policy is the Air Force is not going to leave and the paper going to Cabinet will set out what needs to be done to implement that policy."
Mrs Hulse said the council hoped the Defence paper would guarantee that the Air Force stayed at Whenuapai in the long term and revoke the previous Government's decision for a staged withdrawal.
"We will look at how we proceed sensibly ... postponement of the hearings is an option we will consider, though there is a lot of support for the airport."
North Shore Mayor Andrew Williams said his council was due to speak against the district plan change because its citizens would be in the Whenuapai flight path.
"It's ludicrous for hearings to consider the future of the air base when a major paper is going to be presented to the Cabinet a month later.
"It's going to put ratepayers and taxpayers and everybody else putting their views to huge expense.
"I've asked Dr Mapp and Prime Minister John Key to intervene and stop this useless exercise on a military base which is a matter of national significance."
Green Party spokeswoman for West Auckland Kath Dewar said that as well as the party and hundreds of residents, opponents at the hearings would include the Ministry of Education, Auckland Regional Public Health Service, Defence Force, NZ Transport Agency, the Board of Airline Representatives and the Auckland Regional Council.
