An overwhelming response to Armidale Dumaresq Council’s proposed decision to charge $14 a day to park at Armidale Airport led to a meeting of regional mayors in Guyra last week.
Mayors Isabel Strutt (Uralla), Hans Hietbrink (Guyra), Bill Heazlett (Walcha) and Mal Peters (Inverell) sat down with Armidale Dumaresq Mayor and Deputy Mayor, Peter Ducat and Jim Maher, to discuss the impact this decision will have on residents from their shires who use the Armidale Airport.
Armidale Dumaresq Mayor Peter Ducat is confident that a positive outcome will come out of the meeting and that Armidale Dumaresq Council will consider the needs of residents in neighbouring shires.
“It was a good meeting, it gave us an opportunity to explain our position on the issue,” said Mr Ducat.
“They gave us their ideas and options, what they considered to be the way forward.
“We had the opportunity to explain why we need paid parking.
“It’s needed, not only for the congestion, but for the responsibility in maintaining a regional airport facility. We need an income to do that,” said Mr Ducat.
“The other mayors have a couple of issues. Firstly, they don’t like seeing their residents pay to use an airport in our area, they don’t see that as fair.
“If we have a problem with congestion, they believe we should be expanding the airport rather than putting a charge on parking.
“They have come up with a suggestion of them being involved with us, helping to expand the airport.
“We are not adverse to that, but we still want to have our options open to consider pay for parking in the area around the airport,” said Mr Ducat.
“We will get in writing their proposals; and our council as a whole will be looking at these and considering our options.”
Armidale Dumaresq Council is listening to the concerns of the mayors. However, they strongly believe there is a need for pay for parking around the airport. It will be a few months before Armidale Dumaresq Council gets any reports back from the tender process to install parking technology and they’re very aware that the charge for parking at the airport needs to be reasonable.
“Nobody would say what they thought a reasonable charge was. The figure of $14 a day that was mentioned earlier was not considered by the other mayors to be a reasonable charge,” said Mr Ducat.
“All of us agree that there should be some discounting for parking longer than a day and we had always planned that there would be a period with no charge for picking up and dropping off; my personal preference was for one hour.
“We don’t want to restrict the trading in the airport or make it hard for anyone to drop off or pick up.”
