PENINSULA Aero Club says that it has applied for a planning permit to “carry out maintenance works” on Tyabb Airport’s north-south runway.
PAC president Stephen Braim said work on the runway’s 21-year-old sealed bitumen section of would ensure that it “remains safe and operational for many years to come”.
He said the 45 metre wide runway was included a 10 metre sealed bitumen section with three meter rock shoulders and a grass section on the remainder of that width.
Flyers distributed to residents by Tyabb resident Brewis Atkinson say that widening the. Runway “paves the way” for more aircraft movements and urges Mornington Peninsula Shire to set night curfews on non-emergency flights and cap the number of flights allowed each year (“Airport wants to widen its runway” The News 3/10/23).
Braim’s said the need for the runway maintenance had been “identified by the shire’s engineering reports conducted by an independent engineering consultant”.
“The recommendation is to reseal the existing 10 metre section with bitumen, replace the rock shoulders and spray seal them to prevent entry of water and weeds from growing through, thereby improving the durability and safety of the shoulders,” he said. “Operations on, and from, the airport will continue to be conducted as authorised under the existing planning permits, including as clarified by the declarations made by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal in October 2022.”
First published in the Western Port News – 11 October 2023
