The High Court is likely to be asked next week to examine the 100-year lease of Wanaka Airport granted by the Queenstown Lakes District Council to the Queenstown Airport Corporation, effective from April 1 last year.

The Wanaka Stakeholders Group has been trying, unsuccessfully, to obtain a copy of the lease, and chairman Michael Ross wrote yesterday to the QLDC and QAC warning a judicial review was “inevitable”…

Mr Ross said the stakeholders group was being forced into the proceedings “because we can’t get satisfactory answers to key questions”.

“We’re asking how did Wanaka Airport, which was a community-owned strategic asset, get into the control and ownership of QAC to develop it as it wished?

“At the time, there was no clear disclosure of the plan; there was no meaningful consultation about that matter.”

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