Protect Wanaka 
Wide body jets for Wanaka referenced in QLDC documents [Crux, 07/02/20]
As we reach the half way point in the QLDC’s airport expansion consultation process, transparency is in short supply. So much so that QLDC won’t release to Crux a document that declares plans for wide bodied jets at Wanaka airport and the need to charge ratepayers for shifting wastewater facilities to make room for a new wider runway.
The reference is made in a draft QLDC business case on how to manage the expansion of Project Pure, the name given to Wanaka’s sewage system that is based at the current airport.
The section of the draft business case that references the introduction of wide bodied jets to Wanaka.
Crux understands that the reference to wide bodied jets caused some alarm within the council when it was first noticed last year. Subsequent conversations are believed to have categorised the reference as at first “future proofing” and then more recently as “an error.”
Crux asked to see the full document in late January but this was refused by council comms people with the following response:
“These have been withheld as commercially sensitive under consideration of LGOIMA, section 7, part (2) (b) (ii):
“would be likely unreasonably to prejudice the commercial position of the person who supplied or who is the subject of the information”
This response makes no sense at all as it is QLDC themselves who commissioned the business case, so they seem to be saying that releasing the document would prejudice the commercial position of themselves – the council.
