The Queenstown Airport Corporation is promising to release documents on Thursday showing it did look for a new site for Queenstown Airport.
Kelvin Heights resident John Hilhorst revealed last weekend a 2016 "scoping" letter from Australian planning consultants Arup showing only that the QAC was interested in a site for a "second airport to support Queenstown Airport operations".
"The Arup siting study makes it very clear that QAC asked Arup to investigate potential alternative sites that could accommodate the full forecasted passenger demand to Queenstown Airport."
She declined to say why the study was not released to Mr Hilhorst in response to his Official Information Act request.
The Flightplan 2050 group, of which Mr Hilhorst is a member, is promoting the idea of relocating Queenstown Airport to a greenfields site.
Arup considered 20 such sites, including a short list of two - Mossburn/Five Rivers and Wanaka/Hawea Downs.
The QAC ruled out all the alternative sites for reasons including capital costs, roading and other infrastructure requirements, accessibility for customers and workers and environmental impacts.
However, airline pilot Terry Hetherington considers Arup did not look at all the possibilities.
He took the Otago Daily Times earlier this week to various sites not considered by Arup but which he believed would be suitable.
Mr Hetherington considered, aeronautically, Maori Point, near Tarras, was the best.
It was, he said, long enough for a 3000m runway with 240m of runway safety areas, making it big enough for wide-body jets and for the equipment used at Auckland Airport to be installed to keep it open during fog.
Maori Point was not among the 20 sites considered by Arup.
The second-best site, Mr Hetherington believed, was on the "Sugarloaf" terrace just to the north of Lowburn, which he calculated was long enough for a 2200m runway with 240m safety areas.
The Sugarloaf site is about 50min drive from Queenstown Airport.
It has a grass strip used by recreational pilots and is believed to have once been used by DC3 aircraft providing commercial services to various towns in the South.
Other sites also not considered by Arup but which Mr Hetherington believed were long enough to warrant study were at Bendigo, just north of Lake Dunstan, and two terraces between Tarras and Bendigo.
Ms Tregidga said the QAC did not plan to debate the merits of individual possible alternative locations on an ad hoc basis.
"This simply creates uncertainty for people living in that vicinity, when our approach is focused on complementary development of Queenstown and Wanaka Airports."
The Flightplan 2050 group has called for an independent study of possible greenfields sites.
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Comments
Terry Hetherington,
(1) Building a new airport has a huge price tag, ? 2 Bil - along with years of consents. Also airports create mini-cities.
(2) I flew with a retired aviation inspector all around Central and simulating the approach paths needed for a larger jet, could not find a suitable site.
(3) Terry, big passenger jets require clearer skies (no mountains) for ? 10-15kms. That's why Taieri got moved out to Momona.
(4) So why the does ZQN get away with a short runway & bad approaches ??? sadly a grandfather clause as it were, that would not be allowed at a new site.
(5) Your suggestions (forgetting costs) of Maori Point & Lowburn, both have difficult flight paths. However, let a current A320 pilot answer that rather than a Cessna pilot or even me.
(6) Getting all the traffic through the Kawarau Gorge is not worth thinking about!
(7) The equipment used at Auckland for fog still closes their airport - and there is much fog around Lake Dunstan.
We could all use an existing airport in the region, only 2 hours away, that has one of the longest runways in NZ already, the clearest skies, plus all the facilities and requires no extra cost..