Cessnock Airfield

[Guest DWB]

Heard on Newcastle radio news this afternoon that Cessnock Council is taking back over the control/management of the Cessnock Airport. Could this be a worry/this is a worry? Given the way Local Government generally manage things I would worry a little. Let me guess the first thing they'll have to do - increase fees & whilst RAA AC have been able to slip under the radar with no fees, that honeymoon could end as well. Call me a cynic, but I hope they prove me wrong.

 

 

[cficare]

dont reckon the council will be able to do what the rest of Oz can't Dex!!....charge RAA i mean.

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

I'm a Cessnock rate payer. Council is a bit of worry. They are looking for cash flow income. They have just introduced a road tax fee on all 'event' tickets for all the concerts etc in the vineyards. The roads are completly shot not only with all the tourists but with all the heavy weights associated with the new freeway and track works.

 

 

[cficare]

dont worry Oz...we have a completely incompetent State government down here!

 

 

[Guest DWB]

dont reckon the council will be able to do what the rest of Oz can't Dex!!....charge RAA i mean.

There's always a means available CFI. Only ever flew into Warnervale once & they got me. Man at the counter said that'll be $14.75 thank you very much. I said "What - didn't you see that landing, you should be paying me for the show! He then said you mean I should be charging you for more than one"..........hmmm LOL (This was in my Gazelle days btw).

Look I don't begrudge being charged for landings. I have the choice whether to go there or not. However, my theory is attract people to your airfield, let them land for free, they'll get a taxi into town maybe, they might buy fuel, meals, might even stay overnight & spend more money. Make them welcome not make them feel like they're buying a small share in the place. Drifting here I'm afraid.

 

 

[cficare]

dex.....if councils reckon they will reap millions from ripping offf rec pilots..."they are dreaming"...

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Good point Dex about airfields attracting customers. I've seen some excellent free inner city bus services, which probably pay for themselves by reducing congestion and speeding up movement of shoppers. Has any one done a wide-ranging cost/benefit analysis of such? I can't see many councils paying staff to monitor airfields and collect cash. Perhaps airports will end up like public transport- employing an army of people to collect the money and make sure nobody slips by for free. The extra labour and admin expenses push costs up so much that ticketing becomes the main focus, rather than providing a good service.

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

A bit of a report on the airport in our local paper The Branxton Greta Vineyard News this week.

 

"At an extraordinary meeting on the 30th Nov. Council resolved to take back the day to day responsibility for operations of the Airport.

 

The Chair of the Airport Consultive Committee, (now that would have to be a good gig) Councillor Ian Olson, explained Council's objective in managing the airport was to provide a safe and complying facility. "There is also the potential to promote economic development and tourism throughout the local govenment area" he said. Mayor, Councillor Alison Davey, commented that the Council would be seeking, in it's role of custodian of community assets, to respond to community and user concerns in order to operate the facility in a way that benifits the whole community. Council is optomistic that in the medium-term this Council-owned facility will generate sustainable revenue streams to benifit the whole community. Cessnock Aerodrome was built in 1942 and gifted to Council by the Commonwealth in 1992. Aviation and Leisure Corp had managed the Airport since 2001 on Council's behalf. "

 

 

[cficare]

they got it for nothing...have probably done very little to develop it..and intend to squeeze it like a lemon (extract $ from users)......

 

 

[Ignition]

Hopefully they dont think theyll be getting millions of dollars each year from it... If theyre realistic about it, they might be able to manage a healthy airport, run properly and not for cash.

 

 

[David Isaac]

Council is optimistic that in the medium-term this Council-owned facility will generate sustainable revenue streams to benefit the whole community. .....

Now that is the most worrying statement of all. When are these bloody bureaucrats going to get it in their thick heads that airports don't generate direct revenue, but the indirect benefit to local commerce can be obvious. Lets wait and watch the carnage as bureaucrats rape and pillage the users to death and then sell it up as commercial land when nothing is left.Or ... am I just too cynical?

 

 

[metalman]

It's a very common theme, Hervey bay went through a lot of crap recently with the council trying a user pays system,, problem was the RPT guys were getting all the fruit (and any questions of how much $$$ the big guys were paying was met with stony silence) and the private guys were getting zilch, the aeroclub got real active and basically went through the councils rulebook and then told them what they could and couldn't do ,according to there own rules, end result the council got a bit more willing to sit down and talk ,when we move on there seem to be a happy truce,,,,,might pay the Cessnock aeroclub (?) to give the YHBA guys a call !

 

 

[turboplanner]

David, you've picked the key statement.

 

This is an airfield, why would anyone expect it should be of benefit to the WHOLE community.

 

Have a look at the grants Councils give each year. In my Council, say $50,000 to the Cambodian community.

 

Or the Council may own and run the caravan Park.

 

But that statement indicates a likely future use will be Industrial or Residential, which produces rates.

 

A key reminder to the Council should be the fact that the Commonwealth gifted an AIRFIELD to the Council.

 

This needs local questioning of Councillors, getting up to speed with the agenda, and ensuring the good old boys aren't involved NOW!

 

 

[Guest DWB]

Just a shame when the Feds gave the airport over to the Council it wasn't dedicated as a War Memorial. From my time on Local Government I did learn that anything dedicated as a War Memorial cannot be disposed of by Local Government. The Council I was on decided to dispose of our local Town Hall, obviously I wasn't in agreement but with only 2 Councillors from our town, how do you think the voting was going. Anyway the General Manager later advised Council he found out that under legislation Council's were not allowed to dispose of War Memorials, full stop. So they spent a lot of money on it & bought it back to its former glory.

 

I'm finding it interesting re the Evans Head War Memorial Airfield & what's going on there & wonder if legislation has changed (as Governments can do)

 

 

[turboplanner]

It always pays to check every angle and search for every piece of paper.

 

An issue I'm dealing with is a grab for a large area of land near an Urban area by a developer who sucked a Councillor into taking a short cut or two.

 

When the Councillors strategy was exposed, he referred to a document several years old which he said was concrete evidence supporting what he was doing.

 

When we unearthed the document it totally absolutely shot him down in flames.

 

 

[dazza 38]

HI Dex, im not full bottle on Evans Head.But its not looking good.Apparently the new business man trying to do the airpark is being stone walled by the council when he asks for information.The have ripped up the old WW2 drains going underneath at least one of the runways.I think they maybe doing infrastructure for the proposed Retirement village.(THats a guess, not concrete or anything).Either way, the council have not been helpful.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Easy, FoI the B@st@rds!

 

 

[Guest aviatrix27]

Many councils have had their airfields gifted to them by the federal government over the years. Many also have a bad attitude. Recently, I was in Broken Hill on a vintage car rally, and had a landing fee invoice at home. I decided to call in and pay them. While I was there, I asked where I pay the fee for driving into town. The cashier could not understand that I was telling her that it is immoral that they charge me to land there, but not to drive into the town.

 

If we drive into a town, towing the biggest caravan ever made, we can pull up at the local park, use the free BBQ, empty our rubbish into the bins, empty the chemical toilet into their sewer system, and drive off without spending a cent in their town, because we filled our long range fuel tanks in the last city. If we fly in, we need a cab, accommodation, food etc, all supporting local businesses.

 

Something I've always intended to do but never got around to doing: keep all receipts for every cent we spend in a town and send a copy of those receipts with a letter to the Chamber of Commerce in the town that missed the business because of a landing fee. Writing to the council will achieve nothing, they don't care.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Many councils have had their airfields gifted to them by the federal government over the years. Many also have a bad attitude. Recently, I was in Broken Hill on a vintage car rally, and had a landing fee invoice at home. I decided to call in and pay them. While I was there, I asked where I pay the fee for driving into town. The cashier could not understand that I was telling her that it is immoral that they charge me to land there, but not to drive into the town.If we drive into a town, towing the biggest caravan ever made, we can pull up at the local park, use the free BBQ, empty our rubbish into the bins, empty the chemical toilet into their sewer system, and drive off without spending a cent in their town, because we filled our long range fuel tanks in the last city. If we fly in, we need a cab, accommodation, food etc, all supporting local businesses.

 

Something I've always intended to do but never got around to doing: keep all receipts for every cent we spend in a town and send a copy of those receipts with a letter to the Chamber of Commerce in the town that missed the business because of a landing fee. Writing to the council will achieve nothing, they don't care.

You bloody beauty! Why are you not in Parliament? Perhaps because your ideas are too innovative and make sense?

 

Lyle

 

 

[Guest aviatrix27]

far too sensible to be a politician :p don't get me started on their silly ideas, they don't want dams because we can't have evaporation - where do they think rain comes from? Oops, I've gotten off topic.

 

As Nancy-Bird Walton often said, "the most important road in any town is its airstrip"

 

 

[turboplanner]

far too sensible to be a politician :p don't get me started on their silly ideas, they don't want dams because we can't have evaporation - where do they think rain comes from? Oops, I've gotten off topic."

That's probably precisely why someone like you SHOULD be a politician

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

A memorable old "Frank n Ernest" cartoon said it all: Frank is a successful Congressment in Washington, and confides to Ernest

 

"In politics you just have to stand for whatever people will fall for!"

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

A mile of road will take you a mile, a mile of runway will take you anywhere in the world.

 

Listening to a seminar at Airventure with a big corporation exec speaking about how they expanded their company, was asked how they found towns that had a population base that could supply the labor they needed, responded by saying that the initial contact to check out the town was via the local airport. If the town had no airport they just flew onto the next town that had an airport. No airport, no employment growth for the town.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

A mile of road will take you a mile, a mile of runway will take you anywhere in the world.Listening to a seminar at Airventure with a big corporation exec speaking about how they expanded their company, was asked how they found towns that had a population base that could supply the labor they needed, responded by saying that the initial contact to check out the town was via the local airport. If the town had no airport they just flew onto the next town that had an airport. No airport, no employment growth for the town.

Good point Oz, perhaps you could get more details and form this into an advice for local governments keen to attract investors.

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

Cessnock does pretty good with tourists coming in to spend the day at the vineyards and engineers and such for the mines, then there are the concerts during the summer a pretty good flying school training commercial pilots plenty of RAA activity, heli ops for the firefighters are based there as well nice resturant and motel. room to expand. not bad for one runway.

 

But yes the council will need some direction not to pull it all apart.