Solution for Airport

The completion of the $5 million Queenstown Airport runway extension will not be delayed by an ongoing appeal, Queenstown Lakes District Council corporate and regulatory general manager Roger Taylor said.

The QAC consent for the extraction of gravel to form the base for the runway extension safety area (RESA) was caught in a much larger consent for gravel extraction for the Otago Regional Council’s proposed $1.2 million flood mitigation works.
“All the consents are effectively a bundle of work that was considered together. That is now subject to appeal so an alternative solution to source the necessary gravel required for the airport was sought,’ Mr Taylor said.

Fortunately the airport - on a deadline to complete the consented RESA work by October 2011 - was able to source alternative material through an already existing river extraction consent held by Fulton Hogan.

“It was not necessary for the airport project to be stalled by the appeal and all parties are comfortable that this is a good solution,’ Mr Taylor said.

Fulton Hogan would start carting the river gravel to the extension site this week.

“It’s anticipated it will take two weeks to cart the 10 to 20,000 cubic metres needed for the RESA base,” Mr Taylor said.

The material, which had good drainage characteristics, would only form the foundation with the bulk of the RESA fill coming from the Remarkables Park.