The association believes that constructing White Elephants takes a particular talent: a capacity to ignore facts, a blind philosophical commitment to the belief that “if you build it, they’ll come”, a willingness to deceive the public & to pursue projects without public consultation, unfettered access to the pockets & wallets of the unsuspecting public & a total lack of accountability for the outcome.
The association also believes that the expansion of Merimbula Airport is a classic example of such a project that has been in the making for more than a decade.
The scheme to pursue the expansion of Merimbula Airport was born out of a determination to turn the far south coast into a tourist Mecca for foreign visitors.
While the south coast tourist industry has long enjoyed success on the back of more than one million local tourist visitors a year, politicians such as the Member for Bega, Andrew Constance, & vested interests at Bega Valley Shire Council (BVSC) seem determined to use the airport to conjure forth a magical explosion in international tourist visitors to the coast: potentially more than 600,000 additional visitors annually & equivalent to a permanent increase in the shire’s population of 35%.
How the local infrastructure is expected to deal with such an additional influx of people is anyone’s guess, as council certainly hasn’t considered its impact on the community.
In 2013, council adopted its Merimbula Airport Master Plan 2033, supposedly carefully crafted to ensure that development of the airport was to be the subject of certain trigger events being realised.
Sceptical ratepayers, previously bitten by council’s false promises, particularly when it came to costs, were reassured by the promise that the bulk of the project was to be underwritten by the state & federal governments, with ratepayers only being expected to underwrite half of the projected $2.4M cost of expanding the airport terminal.
Back in February 2013, ratepayers had been promised that the much needed resurfacing of the airport runway would cost ratepayers $6.4M & that “
The renewal and strengthening works as proposed, will cater for existing SAAB craft and RPT schedules over 20 years, or larger turboprop aircraft, noting the aircraft technology and carrier fleets are likely to alter in that period.”
Within six months of the strengthening & resurfacing works having been completed,
major remediation works were required, with further such works undertaken on at least three occasions since, with the then
Mayor stating that the resurfacing should actually take place very four years.
In June of this year, in the midst of the
Eden-Monaro by-election campaign, the federal government
announced a $4.5M grant to council to underwrite the cost of resurfacing the runway as an integral part of the airport extension project works (It will be interesting see if the federal government turns-up every four years or so into the future to fund repeat exercises. It will also be interesting to see if the cost of those works remains at $4.5M given the 2013 works cost $6.5M.).
In the meantime, as is so often the case with council projects, the main expansion program proceeded at snail’s pace, with the installation of essential fire services support infrastructure completed & paid for by the state government & the expansion of the terminal, the cost of which had ballooned from $2.4M to $4.4M, with $1.2M provided by the federal government & $3.2M by ratepayers.
The main part of the expansion project involving the extension of the runway is expected to get underway this year at a projected cost of $7.22M, some $2.83M more than the original detailed cost estimate & with ratepayers expected to meet the cost blowout.
The airport expansion project cost, originally approved by council as $7.62M, with ratepayers expected to fund $1.2M of that, has now blown out by $4.83M to $12.45M with ratepayers being expected to meet $6.0M of that, plus any further overruns, such as the cost of the baggage handling & terminal security screening equipment still to be installed at the terminal.
Of course, with the advent of the tragic Covid2019 pandemic & the likelihood of International travel resuming in any meaningful way unlikely this side of 2023, any hope of a surge in International Tourist travel would appear to be a long way into the future.
Given the major disruptive impact of the Covid 2019 pandemic & the recent concern voiced over the state of council’s finances, there are those in our community who are wondering why the balance of the airport expansion project has not been put on hold.
Unfortunately, history has shown that, like monuments to politicians, White Elephant projects are invariably completed, while other much worthier endeavours continue to cry-out for support.
John Richardson
Secretary/Treasurer
Bega Valley Shire Residents & Ratepayers Association
Tel: 0264945669
Email: secretary@begavalleyshireratepayers.asn.au
Website: http://www.begavalleyshireratepayers.asn.au