[Cap'n Wannabe]

From the MP News..

There was also a bit on ACA, unfortunately you need to sign up to actually watch it.  For those willing to do that, it starts at 16:30 or thereabouts.

EDIT:  Found the video on farcebook..

Talks to clear air over Tyabb

AN uneasy truce was in place over the Tyabb Airfield dispute last week in the lead-up to a meeting between the Mornington Peninsula Shire CEO John Baker and Peninsula Aero Club president Jack Vevers.

The meeting, scheduled for yesterday (Monday 17 June), comes after the warring parties sought common ground in their row over missing or non-existent permits and contentious flying hours.

The mayor Cr David Gill said on Friday that there could be issues such as workers’ compensation insurance if businesses were operating at the airfield without permits.

The aero club was stunned when the council issued a stop-work order, Monday 3 June, saying it was unable to find permits issued subsequent to the original 1965 permit which gave the 55-year-old club the right to operate. (“Shire’s order grounds airfield” The News 12/6/19).

Mr Vevers slammed the ban saying it put 100 jobs and vital emergency services at risk and grounded the club’s 550 members.

Early last week the council in a statement said it acknowledged that over the years the level of activity at the airfield had increased and the surrounding population grown.

The council said it had “attempted to work with the … Peninsula Aero Club for more than a decade to modernise the relevant planning approvals that exist on the site”.

It said it had “advised the club and other landowners and businesses in the precinct that there aren’t any existing planning approvals and there is a need to follow due process and comply with the planning scheme”.

“We encourage and will work with all businesses across the shire to ensure they comply with the planning scheme so they can operate legally and successfully,” the statement said.

“Council are ultimately seeking the preparation and approval of an agreed airfield master plan and noise management plan covering all aspects of the current and future operations, and linked to updated planning permit approvals for the precinct.”

Mr Vevers said on Thursday the shire’s Mr Baker had “reached out to start discussions”.

“I am really pleased about that. It’s what should have happened in the first place. There are no egos in this. We want to get people back to work.”

The meeting comes as a shire-appointed Queen’s Counsel conducts a “full legal review, in order to provide clear information … regarding the conditions of all current planning permits currently applying to the Tyabb Airfield”. The report has a 30 June deadline.

& via the Oz:

Missing permits ground holiday destination airport


The future of a regional Victoria airfield is on the line today when a council sits down with local pilots to resolve the curious case of missing operating permits.

Many of the 11 businesses at the Tyabb Airfield on the Mornington Peninsula have operated on the site since the late 1960s, when the only rule they had to observe was no flying between 9.30am and 10.30am on Sundays for church.

The church is now a cafe and has been for 28 years, but in ­response to lobbying from residents, council sought to add a condition to the airfield extending the curfew from dusk on Saturday to 9am on Sunday.

Mornington Peninsula Shire Mayor David Gill said that was when they discovered permits did not exist for businesses such as the Peninsula Aero Club flying school. In response “cease and desist” notices were distributed to various landholders on the airfield site, instructing them to stop work until appropriate permits were found.

“We are not trying to shut down an airport,” Mr Gill said.

“We’re trying to help them do the things they want to do but it has to be along the same lines as every other business in Australia has to. It’s pretty simple.”

Mr Gill said the council was simply trying to follow due process and a curfew was a reasonable starting point. “For years the situation has been 24 hours, seven days a week of flying. We’ve been hard-pressed to find an airport in Australia that operates like that. Not even Sydney operates like that,’’ he said. Peninsula Aero Club president Jack Vevers said it was an extraordinary situation based on the dislike of the airfield by a “vocal minority” within the community.

“What (council) did unexpectedly and without warning was they walked in and dropped all these stop-work notices on ourselves at the aero club and a number of businesses that operate at the airport and have been operating for more than half a century,” Mr Vevers said.

“It was brutal and abrupt with no explanation other than a few lines in these letters which were technically poorly produced.”

He said a “minor planning issue” had been turned into a huge social problem that threatened the livelihoods of 100 people working at the site.

“Many businesses have been here for so long they transcend the planning scheme. But you can’t just suddenly walk in and close them up,” Mr Vevers said.

Helicopter Resources managing director Bill English said the “cease and desist” notice would prevent his business from maintaining helicopters on site.

“It so happens we don’t have anything in the workshop at the moment but it will affect our ­future,” Mr English said. “We have another workshop in Hobart so that’s always an option (to relocate work there) but that would be ­disruptive to a lot of people.” Mr Vevers said the airfield was of vital importance to the Mornington Peninsula, which had a population of 164,000 but received seven million visitors a year.

“A lot of things hang off the success of the airport; it’s really having a significant impact on the town,” Mr Vevers said. “People want to trust their council but it’s frightening to think a council has the power to not be looking after people but destroying their livelihoods in such an ­abrupt way without discussion.”

Mr Gill denied the council was being manipulated by a vocal minority. “Council’s not influenced by who makes the loudest noise,” he said.

“If there’s anyone who makes a lot of noise it’s the airfield because they don’t like what’s happening.”