A letter-writing campaign by opponents of a plan to allow helicopter rides out of Katoomba airfield has left them with more questions than answers.
A number of residents of Medlow Bath and other Upper Mountains towns wrote to several government ministers seeking information about the decision by Crown Lands to look again at an application by FlyBlue for a lease at the airfield.
It follows a decision made in January to deny the application by Floyd and Derek Larsen because of overwhelming opposition by the community.
But each of the letter-writers received the same form email in response, directing them to documents posted on the department's website.
Mary Marlow from Katoomba Airfield Community Group said: "Letter writers invariably asked for the answer to specific questions but all got the same standard email response. It tells us what we already know, not what we asked."
Unanswered questions included:
- Where in the Crown Land Commissioner's review did it suggest that FlyBlue be given the opportunity to provide additional feedback?
- How will the department test whether the feedback provided (both by FlyBlue and by the community through the community engagement process) is legitimate?
- Will the FlyBlue additional feedback be published prior to the department making a new decision?
- How soon after the report is released is it expected that the department will finalise their new decision?
- Why didn't the department reach out to notify the community, or at least those who made submissions, of the decision to make a fresh decision on the development?
Ms Marlow said she was concerned that everyone has been directed to take any further questions to a member of the department's legal team and were given a phone number to call.
"No email address is provided for the legal team and therefore no physical trail of any further correspondence will exist," she said.
Many of the group only found out the decision was being reconsidered through a Gazette article published in August.
"Considering that the decision is being revisited, and further that FlyBlue have been invited to provide additional information 'feedback' to be looked at in the reconsideration of the decision, it seems antithetical to the community engagement strategy principles that we should only find out from a newspaper article," she said.
Blue Mountains MP, Trish Doyle, has foreshadowed that she will bring a notice of motion on the issue to the next sitting day of Parliament (due to be November 10).
Ms Doyle will move that the house recognises the impact on the World Herltage area of a commercial airfield at Medlow Bath, notes that 85 per cent of submissions opposed the lease and development and calls on the government to ensure the Mountains community is consulted and its views respected.
A spokesman for Crown Lands said he did not know when a decision would be made.
