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AAA CEO Caroline Wilkie explains the NASAF process - 


Via the Oz today:

Poor land use planning a hurdle for aviation growth
Caroline Wilkie is chief executive of the Australian Airports Association.

• Caroline Wilkie
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM September 15, 2017
  

One of the biggest unseen impediments to the continued growth and operational efficiency of airports across the country is actually an issue that is largely beyond the control of the airport. This issue revolves around land use planning.

To those outside the aviation industry, it may seem curious as to what interest airports would have with planning decisions for developments beyond the airport precinct.

However, the reality is, sometimes development proposals, whether they be just outside the boundary of the airport or 20km away in the CBD, can have significant impacts on the airport and its operations.

The reason for this is that poor land use planning decisions around airports can lead to a range of issues and problems including aircraft safety hazards, operational restrictions, protracted litigation, amenity impacts for nearby residents and airport closures in the extreme case. A concept known as airport safeguarding aims to prevent or mitigate these issues for the benefit of the whole community.

This was recognised by the commonwealth and all state and territory governments back in 2012 when the then Standing Council of Transport and Infrastructure agreed to the implementation of a new initiative, the National Airport Safeguarding Framework. The agreement represented a collective commitment from governments to ensure an appropriate balance is maintained between the social, economic and environmental needs of the community and the effective use of airport sites.

NASF raised the airport safeguarding bar in Australia but unfortunately in a number of cases state, territory and local government planning systems have been lagging behind the guidelines. Reforming these jurisdictional planning schemes to align as closely as possible with NASF is a key focus area for the airport industry.

The NASF also remains a focus area for the federal Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development in its recently released Corporate Plan 2017-18, which has identified key activities in relation to airspace protection and building-generated windshear and turbulence — both of which can result in significant safety and operational issues for aircraft.

The airport industry is pleased the department has recognised these issues as priority focus areas, both of which have been particularly problematic for airports in recent times. However, it is essential that the states follow the lead of the federal department and make genuine efforts to reform their respective planning schemes to ensure development proposals don’t detrimentally impact aviation.

While most people can appreciate why proposals for residential developments in the close vicinity of airports can be problematic when you consider aircraft noise issues, what is less commonly understood is why developments 20km or 30km away from the airport can be an issue. This comes down to the importance of airspace protection. Airspace can be most easily thought of as invisible three-dimensional planes or surfaces above the ground around an airport, sometimes quite complex in geometry.

These airspace surfaces can be influenced by geographical features such as mountains and high terrain, buildings, towers and construction cranes, which constitute obstacles for pilots to avoid. The airspace above these invisible surfaces forms an airport’s protected airspace, which extends dozens of kilometres beyond the airport site.

Protection of airspace surrounding an airport is as critical to the maintenance, safety and efficiency of an airport as the safe design and operation of on-ground infrastructure such as runways, taxiways, terminals and navigational aids. However, while ground infrastructure deficiencies can be subsequently modified, once airspace surrounding an airport is lost it is gone forever and limits future airport growth.

This is why land use planning decisions, particularly those that may have airspace protection implications, are of such critical importance to airports. If airspace is lost due to the development of a structure this can result in critical obstructions in the design of instrument flight procedures and may impose limits on the range of weather conditions in which aircraft operations can take place. This could be because of the height of the structure, but also may relate to its lighting configuration.

The impacts of any one obstacle may be relatively minor, but together a number of obstacles may seriously limit runway utilisation, increase environmental impacts, cause airspace congestion and reduce the effective handling capacity of the airport. From an airline perspective, the proliferation of obstacles surrounding airports can ultimately impact on the viability of routes and threaten the commercial viability of some operations.

Such impacts can have significant economic consequences to the local or regional economies that an airport supports.

The impacts of planning decisions that allow for residential developments in the close vicinity of airports can have equally detrimental impacts. Without appropriate mitigation measures the impacts of aircraft noise on communities can ultimately result in the imposition of curfews on airports which significantly limit the number and type of operations.

Airport safeguarding and the jurisdictional implementation of the NASF principles and guidelines should not just be an aspirational objective, it is essential to the ongoing viability of the aviation industry. State governments and planning authorities must recognise the importance of this issue and support the work of the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development to ensure we do not unwittingly jeopardise the future of Australian aviation with poor land use planning decision.

Caroline Wilkie is the chief executive of the Australian Airports Association.

MTF...P2