City of Ballarat councillors will decide on the next steps of the proposed Ballarat Airport upgrade at this Wednesday night's council meeting.
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Council plans to invest $5 million into extending the airport's runway from its current 1200 metres to between 1800 and 2000 metres to allow larger aircraft to use the facility.
If approved, council's contribution would then be matched by the federal government's Regional Airports Program, bringing the total investment in stage one of the airport upgrade to $10 million.
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With two stages planned to follow according to the Ballarat Airport Masterplan, the total investment is estimated to be worth more than $30 million once completed.
Councillors will also decide whether to endorse a new, more 'commercially focused' governance and management structure for the airport and pursue further support from the state government.
The runway was originally 1800 metres long when the airport was constructed in 1940 as a RAAF training base, but was reduced by 570 metres in the late 1980s to reduce maintenance costs after council took over management of it in 1961.
City of Ballarat chief executive Evan King said the airport was intrinsically important to the adjoining Ballarat West Employment Zone.
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"The investment will make BWEZ more attractive and that will then create the return on the investment," he said.
"From an aviation industry perspective, it will also attract aviation businesses there because they'll be able to land bigger planes, so it's sort of two-fold from a BWEZ perspective of business attraction and then also an aviation business perspective, having a runway that is longer will be a big attraction.
"While Essendon and Moorabbin and those sort of airports become more and more expensive, we become quite an attraction if our runway is longer to attract aviation businesses as well."
While the extension would allow larger planes to land at the airport, it would not be sufficient to bring commercial passenger services to Ballarat as that would require the runway to be further strengthened.
Mr King said the extension would allow the businesses currently located at the airport to expand while also attracting new businesses.
"For those businesses out there that service planes, they can service larger planes, for the businesses out there that are involved in emergency management, they can land larger emergency management planes, so it will support the existing businesses," he said.
"It's important that we point out that the $10 million investment and extension in itself won't be the catalyst for passenger airlines coming out of there, but if that was something that was to be looked at down the future, the extension is a key component of that, you just need to add to it the strengthening.
"While Essendon and Moorabbin and those sort of airports become more and more expensive, we become quite an attraction if our runway is longer to attract aviation businesses as well."
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