21 March 2009

Stateline lead with a feature on Snowtown tonight

| SheepGroper
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Tonight’s episode of Stateline had a feature on Snow’s airport empire, featuring a line-up of everyone who has a grudge against it, as the narrater stated “the relationship between the airport and community groups fluctuates between ordinary and awful”. The current spokesman said a complete rebuilding of the existing terminal was to be carried out within five years, hope it’s better thought out then the road mess.

It will be repeated at midday on Saturday [Today].

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ant said :

Meanwhile the terminal itself is pathetic; plainly running an airport is the lowest priority for Snow and Co. They have a ton of lovely land and they plan to build revenue-generating buildings all over it.

A report on Snowtown a year or two back showed that the airport itself was only generating 1/4 of the total income from the site.

Agreed Ant; I actually don’t have too much sympathy for people that move into an area under a flight path/near an airport and then complain about the aircraft noise; buyer beware. But it is completely unfair for established residents to have additional noise inflicted on them (24 hours a day) once they are already in an area.

Holden Caulfield said :

Yeah, maybe you guys are right. I dunno, I live in O’Connor and the only aircraft noise I hear now is either hot air balloons or exhibition flights from the War Memorial and such…

The operative word being “now”. The airport wants to have 20-soemthing flight movements per hour, every hour, 24 hours a day. Everyone will be affected, and once that stuff is happening, it will be pretty-well impossible to reverse (especially with the rather lame governments we have).

People often support these things because of all the benefits that will flow from it. I honestly do not believe that the benefits will justify the increased noise in so many peoples’ homes at all hours. Who will get the benefits? very few, and there are better ways.

One of the reasons that people choose to live in Canberra (the bush capital) is the comparative peace, quiet, reduced pollution, rural-ish landscape etc… Do we really want or need a 24 hour freight-hub (more trucks, more aircraft noise, more pollution, more airport chaos) in this small city? Who would this really benefit, apart from the Snows? And don’t give me that crap about more development=more jobs for Canberra – my friends in retail/industry have a hard enough time finding good employees as it is!

Holden Caulfield10:55 am 23 Mar 09

Yeah, maybe you guys are right. I dunno, I live in O’Connor and the only aircraft noise I hear now is either hot air balloons or exhibition flights from the War Memorial and such…

And also where to move to – if the airport really becomes Sydney’s freight hub, all the inner suburbs will get significant noise.

If Snow gets what he wants, yes we will have a “busy” airport. What he plans to do is utilise it to its fullest extent. The amount of air traffic will be considerable. And what is annoying sometimes in the day, will be much louder (but no less frequent) through the night and early hours. By then it will be too late to stop it.

Holden Caulfield10:18 am 23 Mar 09

sepi said :

It isn’t insufferable now – the whole point is to act on a curfew now, before we end up like Sydney.

Yeah I understand that. But we’re never going to have a “busy” airport in the strictest sense, however I appreciate the need to try and protect future interests.

There is an alternative. Move! 😛

I knew someone would say that.

But if the normal planes wake up my kids (who then wake me up) at 6.20 when they start up, then I am not thrilled about hte idea of noisy freight planes going all night.

sepi: I’m not sure what it will/would be like, but you can’t really draw comparisons between military FA/18s and commercial freight aircraft.

It isn’t insufferable now – the whole point is to act on a curfew now, before we end up like Sydney.

Holden Caulfield9:53 am 23 Mar 09

To those complaining about the ABC’s efforts in this report, I didn’t think they were soft on the airport at all. Okay, they may not have been overly hard either. Perhaps they should have sought more alternate views than the nimby they interviewed, as she didn’t offer much more than a few tears (not literally). Apart from that, I thought both sides of the argument were given equal billing.

Not that this is a reason to let the airport do what they like, but I’m guessing there’s plenty of residents in Sydney that wish they had the insufferable issues of Hackett/Jerrabombera et al.

It was the shocking george bush racket all night that made me realise exactly how bad night flights from canberra airport will be.

Hackett and Watson get a heap of aircraft noise already, as does Jerrabomberra.
And Campbell.

I’ve lived in Campbell and (North) Watson and can’t say I ever noticed planes flying over the suburb overnight or early in the morning. In Watson I’ve noted, while outside during the day, planes taking off to the north and flying about to Mt Majura then turning west and climbing probably over Gungahlin, but the sound wasn’t particularly bad.

The except was in Campbell when some American honcho was here in 2006/2007 and there were helicopters doing circles, planes and all sorts ALL NIGHT.

The proof will be in whatever Airservices’ microphone in Hackett comes up with I think.

‘zackly. The planes they plan to bring in during the wee hours will be shockers. Old freight bangers, and jumbos. You’ll be able to hear them for miles, all the way in. And out again. It’ll be quiet, the air will be still, and many will get to enjoy them, every night.

The most interesting thing about using that webtrak site has been that the planes i thought were the loudest, at 6.20AM, are actually much quieter than some of the 5PM ones.

You really notice aircraft noise when everything else is quiet and you are trying to sleep.

Exactly. More parts of Canberra will cop aircraft noise, regardless of Tralee or no Tralee. The airport has been running a deliberately misleading campaign around that.

Canberra AND surrounding NSW are affected and will be increasingly affected as more flights come in during more tiems of teh day and night. The Tralee issue is a smokescreen.

A curfew now is vital. Jumbos and freight planes coming over at 3am will be a lot noisier than the Virgin Blue jets from Melbourne at 4pm.

I think the northern suburbs get the takeoff noise every day. And we get it especially badly on cloudy evenings.

The airport has tried to say that if Tralee wasn’t built canberra wouldn’t get noise, but that just isn’t true. We get a lot more noise now than 5 years ago, because there are a heap more planes, and more flight paths.

If there are even more planes, going 24 hours, there will need to be more flight paths again, and people who have no noise now will suddenly be getting it.

This site shows the current noise levels of various planes near Hackett.

http://cbr.webtrak-lochard.com/template/index.html

You can input a time, then speed up the simulation to check the noise – 7.50PM yesterday was one over 70 decibels.

I think the main issue is a curfew – why on earth can’t we have one?

cranky said :

JB, time for some investigative journalism!

I second this!

One of the last sources I’d trust would be the Canberra Airport website, but the Airservices Australia report they quote makes pretty strong statements. Does anyone know if they are simply a front for the likes of Snow, or an independent statutory body etc?

http://www.canberraairport.com.au/air_noise/noise_sharing.cfm

JB, time for some investigative journalism!

As a Hume ‘resident’, I claim we are NOT affected by aircraft landing from the East. Aircraft approach the airport almost directly over Jerra, not further south over Hume/Tralee. Aircraft noise IS ALMOST NEGLIGABLE!

We hear aircraft when easterly winds are blowing, and aircraft take off in this direction. Again, primarily over Jerra. And only about one day in ten.

JB, I invite you to come and watch the aircraft land from the outside tables at the takeaway at Hume, and make up your own mind as to the relative noise generated.

Tralee is not the problem. Aircraft landing are not a particularly noisy exercise.

The northern suburbs of Canberra ARE the problem. They must be getting the takeoff noise Hume misses out on, on the other 9 days out of ten.

The wisdom of Job is required.

ant said :

Plus their other activities, like running a scare campaign about Jerra and Tralee, really stink. Basically saying that if Tralee goes ahead, everyone will cop aircraft noise. The credulous buy that lie, and think that if Tralee doesn’t go ahead, everyone will be safe from noise which is arrant nonsense.

Explain to me how the planned development at Tralee will not result in noise sharing across Canberra? It is RIGHT UNDER the current flight paths, and from my past research when I first heard about Tralee, there is pretty much no other way for planes to approach the airport. Jerra has already made them do a weird dog leg approach in some cases, and are you telling me that the future thousands of residents of Tralee will not complain or demand relief from constand 70db planes overhead? I’m not trying to be a smartass, i genuinely want to hear the other side of the story here. My mum owns a property behind Hume, and our realo friend reckons we’re gonna cop it eventually.

I only watched the first few minutes and turned off in disgust.

They said how the Snow family had done so much to turn a small regional airport into a great airport, then all they showed was the office blocks. They didn’t mention that you often still have to walk on the windswept tarmac at our ‘international’ airport.

And you can’t have 24 hour planes and avoid built up areas. Hackett and Watson get a heap of aircraft noise already, as does Jerrabomberra.
And Campbell.

I thought it was a strange stateline piece – they have done better investigative stuff in the past.

The whole airport debacle is a disgrace. We have ended up with a worse airport, with shocking roads and parking immediately around it, and the Snow CBD enterprise has ruined one of Canberra’s major gateways.

Meanwhile the terminal itself is pathetic; plainly running an airport is the lowest priority for Snow and Co. They have a ton of lovely land and they plan to build revenue-generating buildings all over it.

Plus their other activities, like running a scare campaign about Jerra and Tralee, really stink. Basically saying that if Tralee goes ahead, everyone will cop aircraft noise. The credulous buy that lie, and think that if Tralee doesn’t go ahead, everyone will be safe from noise which is arrant nonsense.

Plus the airport affects more than people in Canberra. There’s a surrounding region which is also affected by increasing traffic, and the lack of a curfew, and as for these nebulous benefits which allegedly will flow from the airport going all 24-hour and busy, I think it’s a bit like the Summernats benefits, it’s hard to find anyone who actually does benefit.

I watched Stateline. Far be it from me to ever say anything much nice about Snow & friends, but to the anti-development people, I say this: wah wah wah.

We’ve got the opportunity to have a fairly busy airport with all the development and business opportunity that brings to the region, and with some careful planning residents need not be hindered too much. It’s not that hard to steer planes around existing built-up areas (Jerrabomberra aside perhaps, but that horse has bolted).

It would be good if the spokesperson for the inner north was a bit more eloquent, I didn’t really get her points.

Of course Snowtown is being self serving, but that needn’t be the sole reason to block their plans.

After trying to get out of our ‘international’ airport after arriving home at 4.30pm yesterday I can only say if they said it was shithouse they are right.

Chaos is a word I would also have used

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