2020-10-12 GC Agenda - Item 9 - Attachment 1 - Aircraft Noise Ombudsman Report - Investigation

5.5       Version 2.0 of Airservices’ SEP17 was approved effective 25 March 2019, five
          days into the six week community engagement consultation period. It was
          largely unchanged from Version 1.0 and included a detailed Suburb Analysis.

5.6       The SEP’s Executive Summary said:

                  Airservices will undertake consultation with impacted communities and industry
                  stakeholders to inform the final airspace and flight path design. 18

          and stated its scope as follows:

                  The scope of this Stakeholder Engagement Plan (SEP) is limited to stakeholder
                  consultation activities required for the reconfiguration of airspace and flight path
                  changes as they differ from what is depicted in the EIS to what Airservices is proposing
                  at the Sunshine Coast Airport to support the operation of RWY 13/31.19

5.7       Airservices described its consultation approach in the SEP as follows:
                  SCC and SCA are facilitating engagement activities aimed to inform and update the
                  community on the development and implementation of Runway 13/31.

                  Airservices will undertake specific engagement and consultation activities with
                  communities effected (sic) by the proposed changes to flight paths that differ from those
                  depicted in the EIS.

5.8       In effect, Airservices’ consultation would be targeted to those areas which
          were not considered under the EIS, with those communities that would be
          affected by the flight paths that remained consistent with the EIS to be
          captured by the SCC and SCA community update program.

5.9       The community update program is described in the Stakeholder
          Communication and Engagement Plan (SCEP)20 as to be “run co-jointly
          between the three principal parties: Airservices Australia, Sunshine Coast
          Council and Sunshine Coast Airport Pty Ltd”21. Its aim is described as:
                  To deliver a jointly managed stakeholder engagement project to advise government,
                  industry and communities of the airspace change and flight path designs for the new
                  runway at the Sunshine Coast Airport 22

5.10 Airservices’ SEP made no assessment of the adequacy of the EIS
     consultations by Sunshine Coast in 2014/15 as a basis for this consultative
     approach. There was no analysis of the potentially changed composition of the
     community or the impact that the passage of so many years might have on
     community awareness of, comfort with or acceptance of the changes.


17 Airservices Australia, Stakeholder Engagement Plan, Sunshine Coast Airport Airspace Changes, Runway 13/31

(SEP), Version 2.0: Effective 25 March 2019 (SEP V2)
Note: Unless otherwise specified, in this report reference to the SEP means Version 2.0 of the SEP.
18 ibid, p. 4

19 ibid, p. 5

20 SCAEP Stakeholder Engagement Working Group (SEWG), op. cit

21 ibid, p. 11

22 ibid, p.3



Aircraft Noise Ombudsman
Investigation into complaints about the introduction of new flight paths in the Sunshine Coast (April 2020)   Page 13