· there will not be a single merge point over Blaxland; and
· sets out principles in relation to flight paths with no single merge point over any residential community; and
· outlines a preferred options for ‘head to head operations’ during evening hours (11 pm to 6 am) as a means of minimising the number of homes affected by aircraft noise at night. Head to head operations will involve flights both taking off to, and landing from, the southwest of the runway in circumstances where it is safe to do so. There is more detailed work to do to analyse weather patterns and assess safety considerations, but indications are that this operating mode could be available greater than 80 per cent of the time; and
· additional environmental protection conditions for the Blue Mountains Heritage area were required. (The Environment Minister has outlined these recently after the issue of the final EIS.) Flight path impacts to Sydney Airport flight paths are still not known as flight path design for the entire Sydney Basin needs to be completed. Our question remains on how any changed flight paths will impact the Long Term Operating Plan (LTOP) which has been an approach to spread Sydney Airport aircraft noise and not concentrate noise on any one community. The Turnbull Government will establish a community and stakeholder reference group, Western Sydney Airport (FoWSA), to ensure community views are taken into account, particularly in relation to the airspace design process. NAN believes that the Sydney Basin is one airspace and that the scope of the existing Sydney Airport Community Forum should be extended to incorporate both airports to prevent any “divide and rule” approach to managing the negative impacts of an airport in our midst. Both community forums are made up of the aviation industry, community, state and local government bodies, and local tourism bodies.. NAN attends the Sydney Airport Community Forum as an observer only. Work is underway to prepare the airport site, including clearing some structures and securing the site. Building and upgrading roads in the region has also commenced. ___________________________________________________________________________________ Note: The pdf linked documents requires Adobe Acrobat Reader and the doc linked document requires Microsoft Word (version after 1997).
