Mayors meet minister to press case for airport

Government ministers have been asked to intervene to secure the uncertain future of Ka¯piti Airport, after local mayors raised concerns that a closure could hamper the response to emergencies.

Worried about speculation that the airport’s owners planned to close it, Porirua Mayor Anita Baker, Ka¯piti Mayor K Gurunathan and representatives from the Save Ka¯piti Airport group and Ka¯ piti Aero Club met Transport Minister Michael Wood yesterday to request his support for keeping the airport open.

The meeting came after several investigations were launched into how a medical flight on December 13 was delayed after Ka¯ piti Airport was temporarily closed because of a security threat.

Annie Riley, of Nelson, was on board and the delay contributed to her being unable to hold her dying newborn daughter Charlie, who was being treated at Wellington Regional Hospital.

The evening before the meeting, Save Ka¯piti Airport group also wrote to Acting Emergency Management Minister Kris Faafoi, asking him to make the airport a ‘‘lifeline utility’’, given legal protection as an essential piece of infrastructure. Yesterday afternoon, Faafoi had ruled it out.

Baker, who also chairs the Wellington Region Civil Defence Emergency Management joint committee, told the meeting health services had landed planes at Ka¯piti Airport more than 30 times in the past six months.

She argued that Ka¯ piti Airport could also be essential if a major earthquake was to strike, cutting off roads to Porirua, Wellington or the Hutt Valley.

After the meeting, Baker said she was ‘‘quite happy’’ with how it went: ‘‘We got a good hearing.’’

Marcel van den Assum, who represented the Save Ka¯ piti Airport group at the meeting, said the focus was on ‘‘presenting a compelling vision’’ for the airport as a strategic asset.

Porirua Mayor Anita Baker

The airport is at the centre of a Waitangi Tribunal claim and Ka¯ piti Aero Club president Tony Quayle, who also attended the meeting, said proponents of the airport remaining open were committed to ‘‘finding a solution that has long-term benefit for the original [mana whenua] owners’’.

But George Jenkins, a spokesman for the Puketapu hapu¯ , which lodged the Treaty claim, had been unaware the meeting was being held.

He said some experts disagreed with the argument that the airport was essential to Wellington’s emergency responses, but he could not comment further.

Wood said the meeting was ‘‘constructive’’ and he planned to meet the airport owners.

Faafoi said that although Ka¯ piti Airport would be ‘‘useful’’ in an emergency it was not considered ‘‘essential’’ to the region’s emergency response and helicopters could land at O¯ hakea or Palmerston North instead if there was an earthquake.

Templeton Group, which owns Ka¯piti Airport, did not provide comment on the meeting before publication.

‘‘We got a good hearing.’’