Guardians of the Bays is pleased to report that it has achieved a settlement of its appeal against Wellington International Airport Ltd. The appeal was about the Airport’s designations for airport activities on the current site and over the current section of the golf course owned by WIAL.

The settlement includes improvements to the designation conditions that will:

• Provide for a greater level of community consultation on the Airport’s plans;
• Require the Council to certify more of the Airport’s management plans;
• Require the Airport to make information about its noise available on its website, including details of when unscheduled engine testing has occurred;
• Require the Airport to report on embodied carbon emissions in the construction process;
• Establish a Community and Environment Fund, which is to be funded by the Airport for the benefit of the local community living near the Airport;
• Make the conditions easier for everyone to understand.

As part of the settlement, there is also agreement that:

• Key personnel from the Airport will attend a relationship reset meeting with the community, including Guardians of the Bays and Strathmore Park Residents Association. This meeting is to occur in the next three months and will discuss the operation of the Community and Environment Fund that the Airport is going to establish and fund;
• The Airport will seek to alter its designations to provide for some additional noise mitigation in the future as a continuation of the Quieter Homes Program once rules that provide for the updated “Inner Noise Overlay” and new “Outer Noise Overlay” in the soon to be publicly notified Proposed District Plan are operative;
• The Airport will provide demand forecasts within 12 months that account for specified impacts of climate change on demand for air travel, and publish a summary of these forecasts;
• The Airport will prepare and publish a draft updated Air Noise Management Plan and consult with the community on this key document;
• The Airport will request that the Regional Council undertakes and publishes on its website additional air quality monitoring data from the Airport.

Guardians of the Bays acknowledges the airport in taking these steps in the right direction.

We would like to thank all our supporters, donors and Section 274 parties of the appeal for your help throughout this process. We could not have achieved this without you.

Moving forward, Guardians of the Bays will continue advocating to reduce the adverse effects arising from the airport and its related activities on the environment and the Eastern suburbs.