Shellharbour councillors will debate an upgrade to the Illawarra Regional Airport’s east-west runway on Tuesday night.
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In a confidential meeting, the councillors will deliberate over the runway reconstruction, just weeks after it was revealed the council would begin talks with passenger flight operators.
Council staff said debating this item in public would “disclose the estimated costing of the works to the contractors quoting for works”.
The unexpected news in early February that passenger flights could return to link Wollongong with other Australian cities sparked a flurry of support from thousands of Mercury readers.
Since the plan was first revealed, the council has initiated talks with flight operators after councillors voted to progress the plan, with a budget of $770,000.
The potential carrier has not yet been revealed.
The council says a purpose built terminal building will be built at the airport “in the next couple of years”.
At present, the airport is maintained as a Code 2 airport, meaning it has a runway capable of hosting planes that need between 800 and 1200 metres to take off and land.
However, the council said it may consider a business case to become a Code 3 airport, where much bigger planes could land. It is not clear whether the business case being discussed on Tuesday night would make way for this work.
In a 2015 strategic plan, the council noted upgrading the airport would require the council to buy property from land owners on the west of the east/west runway, and says the work to widen the runway would “be financially prohibitive and beyond the means of council funding alone”.
Introducing passenger flights would also require a significant upgrade to airport facilities (the terminal was destroyed in a fire in 2013), the plan said, to provide “safe, convenient and comfortable facilities” like toilets, waiting areas and food and beverages outlets, as well as linkages and supporting infrastructure for other transport services such as taxis, hire cars, buses and trains.
“It is known that transport customers value frequency, reliability, cleanliness and accessibility to provide a comfortable seamless journey,” the plan said.
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