In late 2016 the Australian International Aviation College (AIAC), which is being used to train pilots for the Chinese government-backed Hainan Airlines, lodged a Development Application for construction and operation of an $18 million expanded Pilot Training Facility at Kempsey airport. If approved, the expansion will see an increase from 2868 flights per year to around 30,000 flights per year. The DA is still waiting a decision from the Northern Joint Regional Planning Panel.

The Save Kempsey Airport Action Group (SKAAG), made up of a number of residents, is opposed to the project.

At the first council meeting of the year, local man and president of the SKAAG Adam Ulrick delivered his speech to a packed council chamber, criticising council for a lack of community engagement, and raised concerns over the AIAC breaching DA conditions as well as the impact of pollution from planes on organic crops in the Macleay.

“The fact that the community as a whole had not been consulted until mid 2017 is bad enough. In our opinion, the community has lost all confidence about your ability to govern. You are failing the pub test on this one for sure,” Mr Ulrick said.

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“Given council’s lack of transparency, and lack of community consultation, especially throughout the last 12 months, the time is ripe for you as a council to live up to all of this hype about a fresh start.”

During the council meeting, Councillors voted to increase community engagement around the airport by notifying anyone who has previously made submissions on the topics of aircraft noise or the Development Application (DA) document, of any changes to the DA.

“We agreed unanimously that where people have taken the time to make submissions to Council about the Airport, we need to actively make them aware of any proposed changes to operations,” Mayor Liz Campbell said in a statement.

A Kempsey Airport Reference Group was also established to assist with the development of a Noise Management Plan (NMP) and Fly Neighbourly Agreement (FNA). The group is expected to have their first meeting in March depending on availability.

Mr Ulrick also raised concerns over the AIAC conducting operations on public holidays, including recent operations on Australia Day.

“This breaches the AIAC’s Conditions of Consent. It is beggars belief that a Fortune 500 company such as HNA Group and its Hainan Airlines doesn’t have a rostering system that recognises public holidays and that ‘they didn’t know it was Australia Day.’,” he said.

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Mr Ulrick said council failed to “punish” the AIAC accordingly.

When asked if that criticism was fair, council’s general manager Craig Milburn disagreed.

“The AIAC have to comply with the DA which relates only to what happens on the ground. Council have no control over what they do in the air whatsoever. In terms of them actually flying. There’s no ability to go and ‘punish them’,” he said.

“Its very rare to impose a fine as such because of a breach of a DA condition and councils normally just don't do it because there's a whole history and a relationship and it's just not how you get on with people to go slapping infringements on them,” added council’s economic sustainability manager Susannah Smith.

“What we did to them was quite discriminatory, asking them to shut down their operations, but we did it and they complied.”

Another concern held by opponents of the airport expansion is the impact of increased flight activity on the pollution of organic crops in the Macleay.

A letter from Australian Certified Organics, presented to the council meeting by Mr Ulrick, stated: “Having an airstrip next to your property with a high number of flights flying over your property at a low range every day is a potential contamination risk and therefore a risk to the organic integrity of your products and land.”

“If there would be some oil fuel spilled on your land, the affected area would have to be removed from organic certification for at least three years.”

Section eight of the AIAC Response to Public Submissions document, which provides responses to a range of community concerns about the airport expansion, discusses this issue.

“The engines that AIAC’s aircraft operate are Austro E4-A engines with 123Kw of power. These engines meet not only the Australian standards (under the Aircraft Engine Emissions Regulations (Cth)) but also the European Union (EU) emissions standards, which are considered the international standard. EU Directive 97/68/EC specifies that the emissions must not exceed: Carbon Monoxide: 3.5 grams /KWh, Hydrocarbons: 0.19 grams /KWh, Nitrogen Oxides: 0.4 grams /KWh,  Particulate Matter: 0.025 grams /KWh.

“When compared to a typical bushfire, which occur with high frequency in the Macleay Valley, through back-burning and natural causes, in which daily emissions can be in excess of 5 tonnes per day, (Carbon Monoxide, Alkanes, Alkenes, Aldehydes, Organic Acids, Nitrogen Compounds, Sulphur Compounds, Particulate Matter, Carbon) the emissions from AIAC training fleet are negligible, which could be around (based on maximum emission standards) 507.5 grams of emission per aircraft, per hour,” the response reads.