Fears of Grafton airport snub for $6m centre

Fears the NSW Government could snub Grafton Regional Airport for a $6 million emergency services co-ordination centre for the Northern Rivers has stung the Mayor into last-minute action.

said.

The excitement spread to Cr Debrah Novak, who had some ideas she would like to see.

“We had a really fantastic workshop the other day,” she said.

“It was a lot of conversations in the input from staff and from fellow councillors and but some of the amazing projects put on the table from community include painting the bridge purple, which I think is great, because I love the colour purple.

“If you read our business papers, all the ideas are in there as well, and there’s some great ones in there from Cr Day.”

Cr Toms had a word of caution that she would not support any rate variation and sough confrmation that the one Cr Day mentioned was indeed the one levied from tourism businesses by Grafton City Council in the 1990s.

This payment has since been paid into the council’s general revenue since amalgamation.

Cr Day confrmed that was indeed the levy he mentioned.

But overall, he said this item, supported unanimously, left him happy.

“So long as nothing arises in the rest of the agenda to upset me, I will, I will leave this meeting happy and smiling. Thank you,” he said.

At the fnal council meeting ahead of the September 14 Local Government election, Clarence Mayor Peter Johnstone rushed in a mayoral minute to lobby Emergency Services Minister Jihad Dib to “strongly consider” Grafton as the preferred site for the centre.

Cr Johnstone said in early 2023 the government announced an $8.5 million investment in the new Fire Control Centre and Emergency Operations Centre at the airport.

It would include a facility for co-location of emergency personnel from the RFS, SES Fire and Rescue at NSW and police to be able to respond to fres, foods, storms and a range of other emergencies, and was to include an operations and logistics centre, administration offces, training rooms, storage base and vehicle base.

He said the Reconstruction Authority has confrmed funds of $6 million have been secured to construct an Emergency Services Coordination Centre to service the Northern Rivers, and that a consultant would soon be engaged to undertake a site feasibility study.

Cr Johnson said discussions so far have favoured Lismore as the site for the proposed centre.

He said the evidence would suggest Grafton Regional Airport was an ideal site for the proposed centre.

“We are considered one of the very worst places, if not the worst place, for potential foods in the future,” he said.

But Grafton Regional Airport is a dry airport. We are on the main highway, Pacifc Highway.

We have transport links in terms of railway.”

Cr Johnstone said that while the Clarence was at the top of food risk areas in the State Disaster Mitigation Plan, its bushfre risk had been downplayed.

“I look at that chart aand we’re right down there in terms of bushfre, and that, to me, makes no sense at all, when 60% of our local government area was burnt in the last in the last fres,” he said.

“And I consider that when they put us right down there in terms of the average annual loss, they put us down as having an average annual loss of $3 million It’s ignoring several bits that they should be considered.”

The mayor said the region had suffered heavily in the 2019-20 fres and was at risk from future fre.

“Farms and industries in areas are affected by bushfres will not only potentially lose infrastructure, which is all its report is considering, but also affect production for several years, I’m not convinced that that’s been put into these fgures,” he said.

“And fnally, habitat and species loss. The wilderness areas of the Clarence contain rare and uncommon habitats that date back to different climatic conditions in the Australian subcontinent, plants and wildlife that are rare and endangered, some may not even be known to science.”

Cr Debrah Novak backed the Mayor, pointing out that the proposed site for the centre in Lismore was at risk in emergencies.

“The Grafton Regional Airport is the no brainer for the Northern Rivers, simply because it was the only airport that didn’t go under,” she said.

“It’s a project that is ready to go, it doesn’t need a whole lot of funding to get it ready to be the Northern Rivers Emergency Management Centre, whereas, if Lismore is the airport chosen to be the central point for emergency management, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done there.

“There’s still planes sitting in their paddock up there that were destroyed on the back of the 2022 foods.”

There was unanimous support from councillors.

Cr Steve Pickering said the centre would be a boost for the area, providing jobs and infrastructure

The council could also use the presence of the centre to lobby the government to take control of the site and take the expense of running the airport away from the council, said Cr Greg Clancy.

Cr Karen Toms said it was crazy the government was thinking of replicating what was happening in Grafton in Lismore.

“It’s a huge effciency savings and it just makes sense, so let’s hope we can get them to change their mind,” she said.

Councillors voted unanimously to support the mayor’s minute.