The Shire of Torres in far north Queensland requires urgent funding to enable an overhaul of its Horn Island Airport.
Council owns and operates the airport, which is the only feasible passenger transport system between Torres and its nearest metropolitan city, Cairns, which is located 1,000 kilometres away on the mainland.
The airport plays a vital role as a stepping stone for aircraft movements not only to the 15 populated outer Torres Strait Islands, but to Papua and West Papua as well as the Indonesian Archipelago.
There is a high demand for regional domestic services, including student travel, and the emerging tourism industry is dependant on an efficient and affordable air service. In addition, as the strategic gateway to Australia’s northern international boundary, the airport is paramount for police, customs, border protection, defence, quarantine, immigration, foreign affairs, health, emergency services and so forth.
Torres Shire CEO, Bernie McCarthy, said the aerodrome comprises a main runway, taxiway and parking area. Both of these require asphalt overlays to cope with larger and heavier aircraft, such as the Qantas Q400 Aircraft, which ceased operation in the region last December following the discovery of runway rutting.
“A report from SKM consultants revealed serious damage to the pavement of the main runway, minor runway and parking and transit area,” Bernie McCarthy said. “This damage presents a medium to high risk in carrying on with the Q400 aircraft operation at the airport, with the potential that further damage may cause a crash or serious incident.
“With our small length of roads and the main mode of local transport primarily being undertaken by regional and local aircraft, an airport with a runway maintained to the necessary safety regulations is absolutely paramount.”
Bernie McCarthy said to overcome these issues, two layers of asphalt must be spread over the full length of the main runway, part of the minor runway and the parking and transit area. He said this will create a safe and non restrictive runway that will not require any major upgrade expenditure for the next 20 years.
“The works will provide the Torres Strait/Northern Peninsula Area with a safe air service, in larger and faster planes that are required to allow this region to maintain similar transport, freight and mail services to that provided for the rest of Australia,” he said.
The estimated funding required to carry out these works is $7 million. Council has access to $4.1 million in funds, including a major contribution from Queensland Transport, leaving the funding gap at approximately $2.9 million.
Torres Shire Mayor Pedro Stephen said that with a small population of 4,500 residents, Torres Shire is in a precarious financial position to entirely fund a project of this magnitude.
“The Shire needs both State and Federal Government to provide the necessary funding to enable us to overcome this region’s major transport problem,” he said. “The airways are our highways – our only feasible access to the outside world. Council strongly believes that the funding of this essential airport project would be a perfect example of the Federal Government demonstrating how the ‘Close the Gap’ aspiration for Indigenous people could be achieved in the Torres Strait region.”
Council will continue to lobby the Federal Government to come on board in a three way partnership to bring the proposed project to urgent fruition.
For further information contact Bernie McCarthy on (07) 4069 1336.
